A new government with significant majority now holds power in Westminster. Starmer claims to have grand visions for a new Britain, but to date he has only carried forward the myopic legacy to welfare he inherited. His main intervention so far has been to take away winter fuel subsidies from pensioners and retain the two-child benefit cap. Even the recent budget of ‘giveaways’, including a boost to universal credit and public spending, will lead to net funding cuts for many by 2029.
To say we could do better would only be re-stating the obvious. We need to stop tinkering at the edges and move towards more radical reform.
Years of disinvestment, austerity and neoliberal approaches to social security have left the UK social policy system a hollowed-out shell. Real government spending per person was lower in the era of the pandemic than it was in 2010. Austerity has led to hundreds of thousands of deaths. Millions experience destitution every day, unable to feed themselves or their family or heat their homes. Rather than offering a way out, our under-resourced and penalising system ensures that vulnerable people experience stigma and shame as recipients of state welfare as well as the indignities of poverty.
