Denham: we may need to change the welfare system to adapt to people’s sense of fairness

By Rowenna Davis

Do the Brits hate benefits? Well not really, but they do kind of hate the people on them. This was the main finding behind a key Fabian report presented at party conference last night. Most taxpayers think that people on benefits take without any intention of giving back. As Brits we have a strong sense of fairness, but we believe benefits should be given to peple who put effort in, not simply to people who have the need to take out. Fairness is not about just entitlement, it’s about reciprocity.

There are several ways that Labour could react to this research. The first is the “John Denham approach”. In the discussion last night, he seemed to be suggesting that we need to reframe our benefits policy to better fit the “common sense of justice.” True, this seems like the fair response one might expect of a representative democracy, but it leaves two problems.

The first is that some people – no matter how much they want to – can’t give back as much as they take. According to the Fabian’s reaseach, 69% of the public thinks that anyone can make it in this country if they try hard enough.

But that’s just not true. Certain people with mental and physical disabilties for example need continuous and unconditional support. This is not their fault, it is their misfortune. If you don’t make this argument and challenge the “common sense of justice” you’ll give up on society’s most vulnerable, and leave misinformed opinion unchallenged.

But there is a second reason why changing our benefits system to suit majority opinion is a bad idea. Paradoxically, it might not get Labour more votes. By agreeing that the benefits system should be based on what people put in rather than what they need, you’re selling out to Tory assumptions. And problems with Tory premises will always be best solved with Tory policies. After all, if everyone really can make it if they try hard enough, why do we need benefits at all? Ignoring the true need for benefits is to allow the problem to be framed on Tory lines. And Labour will never win on a policy problem framed on Conservative assumptions.

A far better approach would be to challenge the “common conception of justice” with the facts. As Polly Toynbee pointed out at the talk yesterday, most people on benefits are actually in work, and many of them even work two jobs. They just can’t make work pay.

Another solution suggested by Kate Green of Child Poverty Action Group was to reframe how we present our benefit policies so that they appeal to the majority’s understanding of fairness. Instead of spending money on campaigns to tackle benefit fraud, which encourage us to see people on benefit as scrounging fraudsters, we should have poster campaigns encouraging the full uptake of benefits. This would make our benefits system transparent, and prove that it’s open to everyone. Maybe then Brits would start realising that people on benefits aren’t so different from themselves.