Tinkering with welfare state will fail Britain, says IDS

Overhaul British society to fix welfare state and make claimants “work ready”
Government must tackle “opt-out” work culture
Up to £13 billion savings and tax receipts in this Parliament

Major reform of British society is needed to fix the UK’s welfare state, warns Rt Hon Sir Iain Duncan Smith MP.

Writing in the foreword of a new report, How to Get Britain Working (And Pay the Bills), Sir Iain says that an overhaul will be required if the Government is to address the spiralling benefits bill, economic inactivity crisis, and meet its defence commitments.

He labels the ballooning welfare bill an “an eye-watering expense to the Exchequer” and “a drag on the growth of the UK’s economy” that leaves “too many dependent on the state without aspiration or hope”.

But he tells the Government that, in their hunt for short-term cash, “simply tinkering with the welfare state will fail Brits and Britain.” He says that without addressing the underlying questions of how we function as a society, the Government “will merely be kicking the can down the road for the next government to deal with once more.”

The report, published by leading think tank, the Centre for Social Justice (CSJ), calls on the Government to embrace a “once in a lifetime opportunity” to deliver “welfare reform that delivers both economic and human benefit, to ensure more people are in work and benefitting from work, to lower the benefits bill and increase tax returns.”

The report identifies up to £13 billion of benefits savings and tax receipts that could be achieved during this parliament, with a raft of measures in the medium and long term to get Britain back to work and the welfare budget under control.

It says it that while a “knee-jerk approach may raise the proposed £5 billion needed in the short-term to meet defence contributions, this is a paltry amount given the burgeoning overall cost of welfare.”

Sir Iain calls on the Government to tackle the economic inactivity crisis by giving young people “a line of sight to a paying job in their local area in the last few years of school, cutting off the descent into inactivity before it even starts”.

Job centre staff should go into schools to speak to children as young as 12 and 13, not to give careers advice, but to explain local employment opportunities and how to go about getting a job once they reach 16 years of age.

The job centre knows what kind of jobs and apprenticeships are available, and explaining what their prospects are, with and without qualifications, to students who question the need for school in their early teens helps re-set their aspirations.

The report argues that the Government must make limiting the impact of unemployment its “first priority”. It highlights how “people are turning to welfare, rather than wages, in order to unlock additional income”.

However, the CSJ says that “it is not enough to merely provide jobs or structure the welfare system to encourage people into them. The people to take those jobs must be work-ready.”

Its mission to get Britain working requires more than simple cuts from the Department of Work and Pensions. Instead, the CSJ argue that, to get Britain working, there must be serious reform in our “health system, education system, and even family life.”

This comes as economic inactivity is spinning out of control. The number of people claiming benefits without any obligation to find work has more than doubled since January 2022, from one and a half million to more than three million.

650,000 more people are out of work due to long-term sickness than at the start of the pandemic, and spending on disability and incapacity benefits is forecast to increase by more than £18 billion, to £70 billion, over the next five years.

Almost a million (987,000) people aged 16-24 were not in education, employment or training (Neet) in the three months to last September, the highest figure since the end of 2013. Tens of thousands of young people go straight into long-term sickness absence every year.

Previous CSJ research has warned that Britain is sliding back into the “Two Nations” of the Victorian era marked by a widening gulf between mainstream society and a depressed and poverty-stricken underclass.

CSJ Policy Director, Ed Davies, said:

“Britain is sick, and being sick pays, but there is hope without simply cheeseparing payments to some of the poorest people in society.

“Taken as a whole our 16 actions provide a pathway for government to deliver the short-term cash it needs while commencing a programme of welfare reform that will ensure more people are in work and benefitting from work.”

How to Get Britain Working says that resolving the growing welfare crisis in the United Kingdom requires a combination of immediate answers, medium term reforms, and longer, deeper thinking.

Its recommendations include:

In the foreword, Sir Iain Duncan Smith MP, Founder of the Centre for Social Justice and former Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, said:

“The numbers not only represent an eye-watering expense to the Exchequer, but a drag on the growth of the UK’s economy and most importantly leave too many dependent on the state without aspiration or hope. It is hard to get a car moving with such a heavy handbrake on.

“These numbers represent real people. They are rising because, for example, the number of workless households with children, where all adults are economically inactive, has risen by 141,000 since 2016. These are real families with real lives who no longer have the hope and purpose that comes with getting up and going to work each morning.

“I have always believed that work is the best route out of poverty. That remains true, but it is a shrinking reality.

“The answers to all these numbers are not straightforward, but we must ask immediately what short term changes can be made to the welfare system. We must then look to longer term reform of the way we do things. But unless we address some of the underlying questions of how we function as a society, we will merely be kicking the can down the road for the next government to deal with once more.

“And amid all this we must remember the basic truth that work is the best route out of poverty and start from there.”