Rolling out Universal Credit alongside Universal Support now would enable benefit recipients to fulfil their potential.
The Government’s Autumn Statement contained a welcome commitment to further welfare reform to get more people back to work following the pandemic.
The debate has centred lazily on why we should not uprate benefits in line with inflation. This argument failed to take into consideration the fact that benefits had over the last year already fallen below the rate of inflation by some 3.5 per cent. Failing to uprate them this time would have been very damaging for many families.
Building on my welfare reforms during the Coalition years would save both money and lives. When I brought in Universal Credit (UC) alongside other reforms, long-term unemployment fell by half. Even better, the percentage of children living in workless households fell from one in six to below one in ten, meaning that 700,000 more children were able to grow up with the simple but life-changing advantage of seeing their parents go out to work.
Astonishingly, even after all the turbulence of the pandemic, there remain a million fewer workless households today than there were before my reforms. Work also remains the single best route out of poverty.
New analysis from the Centre for Social Justice estimates that there has been a 23 per cent increase in the number of working-age benefits claimants since Spring 2020. This has increased costs by some £13 billion.
The CSJ’s analysis shows that the overall rise in working-age welfare has been driven by increases in claims among those exempt from requirements to work – usually due to physical and mental health problems, disabilities or caring responsibilities.
Whilst the great flexibility of UC has succeeded in bringing claims back in line with pre-pandemic trends for those most immediately able to work, the numbers in the more vulnerable group remain stubbornly high.
At present, people on sickness benefit are not allowed to work more than 16 hours. However, such a cliff-edge leads in part to those wishing to work longer often ending up in the black economy. The majority of those on sickness benefit are there because they have mental health issues. Most suffer from anxiety or depression, both of which can be treated.
The Department of Health recognises that work is a treatment for many with mental health problems. Official surveys show that at least one in five claimants in this group would like to work – at least 700,000 individuals.
That’s why getting the remaining sickness benefit recipients on to UC quickly is vital. Once there, they can receive proper targeted help, including accelerated treatment enabling them to re-enter work or increase their hours. The same is true of the remaining tax credit recipients who have not yet been brought over onto UC. Again, once that has been done, they can receive targeted help to get them into work.
There’s one further programme that should be rolled out alongside UC and that is Universal Support. Once the individual’s problems had been identified, they would then be passed on to receive targetted specific help and thus quickly be able to move them back into work.
This is the right way to save money and save lives, at a time when taxes are rising and is the policy that the Work and Pensions Secretary Mel Stride should be seeking to implement. It is a very Conservative thing to do as well.