Welfare Reform

The Tories Are Fighting A War Against State Dependency, Not The Disabled

Samuel Hooper42 Comments

ATOS Kills - Birmingham Against The Cuts - DWP - Welfare Reform

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Opposition to the Conservative government’s welfare reforms are high on hyperbole and outrage, but tellingly low on alternative proposals

To listen to many voices on the Left is to be told that we live in a uniquely heartless and uncaring age, where living standards are being deliberately driven to unprecedented lows by the deliberate actions of a government which is not just wrong, but actually evil.

Here’s Laurie Penny in the New Statesman, pouring scorn on the very thought of verifying that claims for sickness and disability benefit are genuine:

I should say “fitness tests”, because nobody gets to be sick any longer under Iain Duncan Smith (so good at rebranding ideological cuts that they named him twice, once for each face). Navigating this system is humiliating enough for disabled people without them being lied to every step of the way. If the DWP would just come out and say that it doesn’t believe the state should help people who are ill, disabled or injured, it would somehow be more bearable. At least people would know where it stood. But the stated aim of the welfare changes is to “get people working”, because: “Work is the best route out of poverty.”

And here’s the Green Party’s Jonathan Bartley, churning out the latest conventional left-wing thinking over at Left Foot Forward:

For IDS it is now clear that disability is not something to be embraced, let alone celebrated as part of the diversity which makes us all stronger. Disability is an aberration. It is a problem which needs to be fixed.

And if those who are different get the right therapy, or where necessary they are sanctioned, they can be pushed into the workplace to become like ‘normal’ people.

Left-wing opposition to Tory welfare reforms has now become so reflexive and so unthinking that encouraging people to work and be economically self sufficient – with all the freedom that it brings – is now actively seen as a bad thing.

Britain is now such a “diverse” country that it apparently contains a large bloc of people for whom any kind of work is permanently impossible to contemplate, and for whom any attempt to help or encourage them away from dependence on benefits (thus protecting them from vulnerability to future policy and benefit changes) is seen as an unconscionable assault on their “human rights”.

This is dangerous, hyperbolic nonsense.

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Why I Am A Conservative

Samuel Hooper2 Comments

Cambridge University - Conservatives for Liberty - Why Im A Conservative

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First published at Conservatives for Liberty

I came from a single parent family and a working class background, got into Oxbridge, worked hard and made something of myself – no thanks to the modern Labour Party or the nurturing support of Big Government

I first realised I was a conservative the day after I heard George Galloway speak at the Cambridge Union Society in 2002. Galloway has a certain way with words when he turns on the charm, and perhaps like many other people that evening I left the debating chamber thinking that maybe there was something to this socialism business after all.

It was only after letting the ideas percolate in my head overnight, trying and failing to match the socialist rhetoric against my own life experience, that I realised that everything George Galloway said that evening was complete hogwash – and that conservatism remains our last, best and only hope for building the just and prosperous society.

If this is all starting to sound a bit Brideshead Revisited – privileged young man goes to Oxbridge, dons a tuxedo and gets in with the Young Conservative set – perhaps I had better start over. I came from a poor, single parent family in Essex. I grew up on benefits, not that it is tremendously relevant. The point is that everything I achieved since that time has been the result of a nurturing family environment and my own hard work. Despite coming of age at the peak of New Labour’s power and popularity, our supposedly benevolent welfare state was at best an irrelevance and at worst was an an outright hindrance to my progress.

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A Better Way To Approach The Welfare Debate

Samuel HooperLeave a comment

lordcarey

 

Sometimes it takes the return of the grizzled, world-weary veteran, called out of retirement one last time, to show the flailing stars of today exactly how it should be done, and to save the day.

So it was when George Carey, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, spoke out in a newspaper column, castigating his fellow bishops for their naive and fumbled entry into the British welfare reform debate.

The Daily Mail reports:

Last night, Lord Carey of Clifton said that it was too simplistic to blame the recent welfare cuts for the rising use of food banks and bishops are doing the Church no favours by entering the debate.

He said such opposition to reducing the welfare bill was ‘Canute-like’ and reflected an ‘overt left-right politicisation of Church versus government’.

The former Archbishop of Canterbury said Anglicans and Catholics share outrage at the rising levels of hunger among the most disadvantaged and that the welfare state has reached ‘gargantuan’ proportions.

Lord Carey continues:

‘All three political parties acknowledge the need for reductions to welfare spending, wastage and fraud in the system and have all talked about the dangers of welfare dependency and the need to get people into work.

‘They are not agreed on precisely where the axe should fall, but the Churches should beware of the dangers of blithely defending a gargantuan welfare budget that every serious politician would cut as a matter of economic common sense.’

This really hits the nail on the head. Reading or watching the initial intervention in the debate by Catholic Cardinal Vincent Nichols, and the follow-up letter by the Church of England bishops, one got the overwhelming sense that the key figures had not done their homework. So shallow was the level of understanding, and so absent was any sense of historical context or detailed knowledge of government policy, that the bishops may just as well have been standing at the gates of Number 10 Downing Street waving “Down With This Sort Of Thing” placards.

A strong sense that Lord Carey was embarrassed by the incompetence of his successors’ handling of what is a complex and fraught issue pervades his column.

But most heartening of all is this acknowledgement – albeit from a former rather than a current religious leader – that the problems in our society will continue for just as long as we continue to look exclusively to government to solve our problems and address human suffering rather than looking to ourselves:

Lord Carey said: ‘They are right in describing a serious problem but only partially correct in their analysis.

‘It is much too simplistic to blame these problems on cutbacks to welfare and failures in the benefits system, whether it be payment delays or punitive sanctions.

He added that the welfare system is being ‘asked to replace kinship and neighbourliness’ and is ‘never going to pass muster as the ideal vehicle to deliver aid to those in greatest need when they most need it.

This is precisely the problem. Faced with a situation where millions of people are dependent on various kinds of welfare and often kept down through a series of perverse incentives, the bishops did not stop to consider how they as leaders and their church as a community could step in and provide positive solutions. Rather, they wrung their hands and passed the ball to the government, a shameful abdication of responsibility.

It is not the Church’s job to simply take note of suffering and pass it on to the government for review – indeed, while it is clearly not in the interests of the people for whom they supposedly advocate, neither is it in their own, more narrow interests. As I wrote last year:

… perhaps it is directly because the state plays such a large part in everything that we do, from cradle to grave, that the church to which [we belong] is withering and shrinking by the year.

To a great extent, aside from the divine aspect, has the British welfare state not done away with the purpose of church, of knowing your neighbour, of being part of a community, altogether?

Telegraph columnist Cristina Odone, with whom this blog has had precious little to agree on of late, is also full of praise for Lord Carey’s mature intervention in the debate. Her distillation of Carey’s message is worth reading:

Poverty, he argues, is not caused by Coalition cuts but by multiple factors including the fragility of the family, which results in too many relying on the state. Strong kinship, a helpful community: today’s disadvantaged Briton can no longer depend on either. Stop entering the political fray, he tells his colleagues, but look beyond Left and Right to see the real tragedy of a culture that has lost its way.

Odone’s overall assessment of the debate on welfare reform, and what church leaders need to do in order to regain the right to be taken seriously on the issue, is also excellent:

Dr Carey instead is speaking sensibly and calmly from the sidelines: the analysis is more complex than you’ve allowed for, he chides his colleagues; you’re doing yourselves and our Churches a disservice by blaming the status quo on an unpopular government. Until you can offer either a true analysis of the root causes or a real alternative to the government’s proposed reform, keep schtum.

As Odone makes clear, and as this blog has previously acknowledged, the church has a potentially valuable, even critical role to play in shaping the debate. But they can only do this by temporarily stepping back from the limelight and reading up on the subject a little.

More urgent even than enrolling in Civics and Economics 101, though, our church leaders need to think about the best role of religious organisations in solving the problems of poverty, blight and human misery that they have identified. The fact that their first response was simply to flag the problem to the government and move on is deeply discouraging. Is their vision for the church really nothing more than to observe and report social phenomena to the ‘proper authorities’?

And yet there is hope. The former Archbishop of Canterbury spoke a powerful truth to today’s ecumenical leaders. They may not like being publicly admonished by their predecessor, but if they strive for wisdom they will listen and adapt.

In this important debate, which is ostensibly about welfare reform but in reality touches on everything that governs how we relate to and care for each other, George Carey – twelve years after leaving office – is offering the church a pathway away from irrelevance.

It’s time to follow the leader one last time.

Stop Building Palaces While The People Suffer

Samuel Hooper1 Comment

newarkarchdiocese

At a time when the Catholic and Anglican churches on either side of the Atlantic have been parading their advocacy on behalf of the poor and the powerless, they might have bothered to put their own houses in order first. But, once again, through acts of bad timing and breathtaking bad taste, they have shot themselves in the foot.

In the UK, a Conservative MP hit back at the twenty-seven Church of England bishops who signed an open letter condemning the British government’s welfare reforms and labeling them “punitive”. Charlotte Leslie MP rightly pointed out that the church has considerable assets of its own that it could deploy in service of the poor before it becomes necessary to start badgering the government to redistribute more income between private individuals:

They say charity starts at home. Lambeth Palace [the official London residence of the Archbishop of Canterbury] is a rather nice home.

If you are invited to a reception there, you pad up richly carpeted stairs, along corridors of gold-framed paintings, before being treated to quails eggs with a delicate celery salt dip, and freely flowing wine. It’s rather a long way away from the local churches with crumbling roofs, serving damp biscuits and coffee in cracked mugs after the service.

One can’t help but think that this luxurious, and historic Palace might not be put to better use, more in line with the New Testament , if it was rented out to those who would pay dearly for such luxury, and the operation of the Church of England were to decamp to an industrial estate, outside Slough.

Just think of the number of church roofs that could be repaired from the income, and indeed the number of hungry people who could be fed.

The church’s ill-advised foray into campaigning for the Labour Party is encountering much-deserved resistance because the views of twenty-seven relatively coddled bishops with little recent experience of real life are not in tune with the sentiments of the people, and because they displayed a fundamental misunderstanding of the government’s own policy and its application.

Not very impressive from a large faith organisation seeking to influence the public debate.

Father Ted's Bishop Brennan - not a role model for the Church leadership
Father Ted’s Bishop Brennan – not a role model for the Church leadership

 

Meanwhile, the New York Times reports on the attempts by the Archdiocese of Newark to lavish over $500,000 on upgrades to a residence for the bishop – not his primary residence, but his separate vacation home:

John J. Myers, the archbishop of the Newark Archdiocese, comes to this vacation home on many weekends. The 4,500-square-foot home has a handsome amoeba-shaped swimming pool out back. And as he’s 72, and retirement beckons in two years, he has renovations in mind. A small army of workers are framing a 3,000-square-foot addition.

This new wing will have an indoor exercise pool, three fireplaces and an elevator. The Star-Ledger of Newark has noted that the half-million-dollar tab for this wing does not include architects’ fees or furnishings.

The expansion of the bishop’s vacation home will be funded by the sale of other properties owned by the archdiocese, they claim, as though this detail somehow makes the outrage more palatable. It does not. Either the sold buildings served an important purpose for the archdiocese which was suddenly ripped away in order to provide a little more luxury for the bishop, or they were unused and deserved to be sold so that the equity can be released in service of the church’s core mission.

A just reward for a job well done?
A just reward for a job well done?

 

Neither is the lucky beneficiary, Archbishop John J. Myers, a particularly lovable figure whose flock would be particularly thrilled to see treated in so generous a way:

So many leaders of the church have served it so badly for so many decades that it’s hard to keep track of their maledictions. Archbishop Myers provides one-stop shopping. He is known to insist on being addressed as “Your Grace.” And his self-regard is matched by his refusal to apologize for more or less anything.

It was revealed last year that a priest seemed to have broken his legally binding agreement with Bergen County prosecutors to never again work unsupervised with children or to minister to them so long as he remained a priest. When next found, he was involved with a youth ministry in the Newark Archdiocese.

Parishioners in Oradell, N.J., also discovered that the archdiocese had allowed a priest accused of sexual abuse to live in their parish’s rectory. A furor arose, and last summer the archbishop sat down and wrote an open letter to his flock. He conceded not a stumble. Those who claim, he wrote, that he and the church had not protected children were “simply evil, wrong, immoral and seemingly focused on their own self-aggrandizement.”

It is hard to see how frittering away scarce diocesan resources in order to build an MTV Crib-style McMansion for a mediocre bishop on the verge of retirement constitutes good stewardship of the church finances. And it is equally regrettable that given opportunity after opportunity to rehabilitate its battered image and start practicing humility and restraint, the hierarchy of the American Catholic church is unable to do so, and – worse still – feels no need to do so.

The church seeks to add its voice to important political debates on both sides of the Atlantic – concerning freedom of religion and abortion in America, and on welfare reform in Britain. In both countries, church leaders seek to portray themselves as spokespeople for the poor, the voiceless and the powerless.

This message would be slightly more credible if church leaders could somehow find it within themselves to stop building swanky palace extensions for their hedonistic bishops.

 

Image – a palace fit for a mediocre, hypocritical bishop. The new extension being built at the vacation home of Newark Archbishop John J. Myers.

 

The Church’s Embarrassing Welfare Intervention

Samuel Hooper1 Comment

jobcentre

If you want to start playing in the big leagues, you first have to do the necessary preparation – no ifs or buts – unless comprehensive defeat and embarrassment are an acceptable outcome.

But with each additional intervention in the growing row over the coalition government’s welfare reforms, it becomes increasingly clear that the Church (first as represented by the Catholic Archbishop of Westminster and now a large group of Anglican bishops) did not do its homework or due diligence before plunging into the complex welfare policy debate. Worse still, people are starting to notice.

As government indignation grows following the Church’s public accusation of dismantling the social safety net, the Telegraph sardonically notes:

Unlike Jesus, the Treasury cannot work miracles when it comes to funding the welfare budget.

This zinger is just the prelude to a more comprehensive rebuttal of Archbishop Vincent Nichol’s accusation that the Conservative/Liberal Democrat coalition government has deliberately and completely destroyed the social safety net for poor and vulnerable Britons. Charlotte Leslie, Conservative MP for Bristol North West, is not having any of it:

Much as we would like it to be otherwise, politics and the treasury are bound by the prosaic principles of miracle-free finance. Christ may be able to produce endless amounts from a couple of loaves of bread and a tin of sardines, but to date, neither the Treasury, nor, must if be said, the Church of England, managed to replicate this, and it seems unwise at best to base a welfare policy upon such a proviso.

Given that is the case, the Bishops’ criticisms would have carried more weight if they had accompanied their foray into welfare policy with some kind of hint as to how they might secure the future of our nation’s low borrowing rates, and continue with a one-third deficit reduction plan, (which of course is essential if we are to have any chance in spending enough on welfare) whilst doing better in helping the poorest. This would have been an extremely welcome contribution to a dreadfully difficult challenge.

By not doing so, they cheapen the essential point they are making about how we care for our vulnerable, in the long term.

This is sadly very accurate, and closely echoes what this blog said on the matter only yesterday:

For all of the noise generated in the wake of the Archbishop’s interview we are no closer to understanding what the Church would prefer to see in place of the coalition government’s reforms.

How much stronger would Archbishop Nichols’ intervention have been if he had proposed something radical to replace Iain Duncan Smith’s incremental reforms? Some might argue that it is not the Church’s place to propose new policy, but if an organisation as large and respected as the Catholic Church disagrees with current government policy on welfare, it would only benefit the country if they made public their best thinking as to how to move forward with reform given the current economic constraints.

The Catholic Church is deeply embedded in communities throughout the entire United Kingdom. What if they were to use that proximity and understanding to propose some better reforms, rather than engaging in fruitless hand-wringing from the sidelines?

It is also heartening to see a Conservative MP taking the church to task for belatedly weighing in on the welfare debate only now, in the year 2014, and for directing their admonition only at the coalition government and not at failed policies of the previous Labour government who laid the groundwork for so much of the human suffering that is now taking place. Leslie writes:

Finally, if such an unprecedented attack was going to be made, the Bishops would have had more credibility if they had acknowledged some basic truths: That food-bank use increased ten-fold under the last Labour Government. That the Labour Government was so worried about the image that food-banks would create, that it prevented Job Centres from referring needy individuals to them (that’s got to rate pretty badly on the New Testament test) and that that the increase in food-banks will also partly be due to this added referral rate.

The facts are that we have a dreadfully difficult task: to bring the country back into economic health so that we are able to continue to support a welfare state whilst at the same time reducing what is simply an unmanageably large current welfare bill.

While it is true that the buck stops with the government of the day in terms of specific policies, anyone wanting to be taken seriously when speaking about welfare should be able to demonstrate an awareness of the political reality going back before 2010, to a time when the last Labour government made so many more people dependent on government benefits or tax credits, and vulnerable to necessary cuts in public spending. Pretending that everything was fine until 2010, and that the fault lies with the people attempting to clean up Britain’s ruined public finances rather than those who brought them to ruin in the first place, is either evidence of extreme left wing partisanship or a very simplistic and immature understanding of welfare policy in general.

This is a time for serious debate, and as this blog has already stated, an intervention from the Church was both important and timely. Unfortunately, the intervention that the Church provided was not the one that the seriousness of the subject deserved. Hyperbolic talk about the destruction of the social safety net is not becoming to a serious organisation, and is more at home in one of Ed Miliband’s talking points than coming from the mouths of consecrated bishops.

A real, worthwhile intervention from the bishops would have acknowledged the competing demands for limited financial resources when it comes to government spending, and would have acknowledged the various faults and missteps that led us to the current place as well as chiding those who are currently trying to dig us out of the hole. It might have brought up the fact that politicians of all parties are doing the country a disservice by focusing only on welfare but ignoring pensions and the retirement age when it comes to tackling deficit reduction. A statement on the continued wisdom of universal benefits, the pros and cons of means testing or the extent to which the burden of spending cuts should be re-calibrated between the young and old in our country – all of these would have been welcome interjections.

What we got instead was alarmist, hyperbolic talk about the end of the social safety net from a group of men who appear to have only tuned in to the debate this month, and received most of their information in that time from Labour Party HQ.

The Church diminishes herself by making such blatantly one-sided forays into national policy debate. Faith groups are  capable of making a much more mature and valuable contribution to the national conversation, and the British public deserves the best of their efforts, not the dregs.