Today the Common Weal published ‘In Place of Anxiety: Social Security and the Common Weal’ I was privileged to co-author this report with Professor Ailsa Mackay who died so shortly after it was completed. It describes how there are two possible views of a welfare system . One sees welfare as a ‘bare minimum’ safety net which should always be calibrated to push people towards work by creating an environment of fear, anxiety and insecurity. This view is taken by the UK Government which actively promotes benefit withdrawal, aggressive means-testing and continual downward pressure on levels of benefit payment to ‘incentivise’ people to work. This view is wilfully disconnected to the facts: most people in poverty are already working; most people out of work or facing under-employment say they want to work or work more; there is plentiful evidence that a punitive approach to welfare does not increase economic participation. It is also contains within its ideology an inherent inhumanity.
The second view of how a welfare system should operate is that it should be an integral part of a national strategy to pursue the interests of citizens by emphasising their social security. This view accepts research which shows that at the top of what people say they want from life are a decent job, somewhere nice to live and the security of knowing you can pay your bills and feed your family. This view accepts that people want to work and participate in their society and draws from the evidence which shows that people are better able to participate in the economy from a base of individual security than from collective anxiety. It notes that societies which have achieved high rates of economic participation and low rates of poverty are ones which integrate the concept of ‘social security’ into all government actions.
A piecemeal tinkering of existing structures is not enough. Stopping a creaking system from falling over, means ongoing social and economic costs for that patch-up. A whole new integrated system of social security starting with well-paid work, a home to build a life from and Citizens Income as the most efficient and secure means of giving a base income should be created.
I, and I think Ailsa, believed that we had more chance of creating that system here in Scotland than at a UK level because to create such large shift you need to build a consensus. Such a system is an outrage in the eyes of The Tory Party, the City of London and the Daily Mail and as a new and young thing would be ‘trodden on ‘ before it could begin to thrive.
That is why I am deeply disappointed that the Scottish Labour Party didn’t include devolving welfare in its Devolution Commission report published this week. We need not only a model for allowing Scotland to build its own tax system (as the IFS said the UK one is no longer for purpose) but essentially the power to create a new system of social security. The integration of tax and benefits is vital if we are to turn around a situation of dire inequality where the UKs 5 richest families have more wealth than the bottom 20% of the entire population.
Scotland could ‘hot house’ this new system in a much less hostile environment than is available in London and once it has grown to be strong and fruitful it might be transplanted to the rest of the UK.
This is exactly the tone that needs to come out of the referendum debate in Scotland – and it increasingly is. There is a chance to build a better society: just because it does not fall into the existing UK ‘structure’, it needn’t be seen as threatening. A successful Scotland with a left-leaning consensus could be transformational for England, Wales, Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.
I firmly believe that everyone has an inherent right to clean water, decent affordable housing, and work. In the event they cannot work, for whatever reason, we, as human beings have a duty of care to anyone in that position. It seems to me that a fairer distribution of wealth and resources would make sense, and taking charge of our own taxes is one direct method of doing it. I fail to see how it would make anyone, apart from Westminster government feel threatened
I agree that it should be better to control Welfare within Scotland. BUT — NOT including independence for Scotland. It can readily be done through the existing government — especially if this becomes a Labour government at next election
I agree with the principles behind this report, no doubt the detail will be the subject of continuing discussion but the underlying assumption that we need to attack inequality and reverse the current demonisation of those who, in the overwhelming majority of cases through no fault of their own, are in need of help and assistance.