Giving welfare reform both barrels in the Lords

By Sarah Hayward / @sarah_hayward

Political expediency is a fact of life and older than the hills. And the Welfare Reform Bill saw a double dose of it. The very idea of a benefits cap was nothing more than tabloid populism from the Tories, Labour’s decision not to oppose it in the commons was born of the same base instinct to please. Expediency is as old as politics itself and will be around as long.

But there was strong feeling from many on the left that Labour should’ve taken a principled stand and opposed the benefit cap.

For my part, sitting in a position as a councillor, representing a deprived area of central London it has been blindingly obvious to me for a long time that the changes to housing benefit and the introduction of a universal benefit cap was going to harm families and particularly their children – it will increase child poverty and will cause flight from areas where housing costs are inherently high – regardless of the social needs of the family or their children, or the needs of the local economy. Anything that puts people’s housing at risk can cause homelessness. I was disappointed by the Labour response but could understand how they came to the decision.

Housing costs aren’t as high in most of the country as they are in Camden, and the cost of living isn’t as high in most of the country as it is in Camden. Coupled with the fact that the tabloids are rather partial to a bit of benefit bashing it isn’t hard to see how the Labour front bench came to the expedient conclusion not to outright oppose the cap – focussing on different amendments instead. Readers will have differing views on whether the party was right or wrong in this particular instance, but it won’t be the last time a political party takes the perceived path of least resistance.

The question now is what will Labour do as a result of the letter written by Eric Pickles’ private secretary to David Cameron’s private secretary warning of 40,000 families being made homeless by the policy. With the bill’s next stage, second reading in the House of Lords, as yet undated, it’s likely that Labour has all of recess to think about its approach.

And while it might be tabloid pleasing expediency to have accepted the cap – the nuances of impacts on individual cases being harder to explain – surely 40,000 homeless families, as modelled by a government department is a different kettle of fish altogether.

Labour has another opportunity to force a rethink and needs to take it. Forcing a rethink to prevent mass homelessness must be the right thing to do.

There could now be significant political advantages as well. One has to assume that Andrew Stunnell, the Lib Dem minister in CLG knew of the letter but did he warn his party colleagues? There would be a number of Lib Dems that Labour could start to isolate on this issue. Homelessness is highly emotive and much as I’m no fan of the Lib Dems I’m pretty sure not very many of them got in to government to knowingly and wilfully make people homeless – which is what this letter says the bill does.

This is particularly the case as even in the most callous of justifications – deficit reduction – just doesn’t stack up. In black and white, DCLG are saying what many councillors have known for a long time, that this policy will actually result in a net cost to the taxpayer. So far, since the leak of the letter Lib Dem parliamentarians haven’t been challenged to speak out on the issue. I imagine a considerable amount of squirming if they are actually put on the spot.

This will either lead to splits in the coalition or mark the complete conversion of the Lib Dems from cuddly alternate lefties to fully paid up members of the nasty party. It’s simply unjustifiable to make people homeless at additional cost to the tax payer.

Away from the politics, it’s also just possible we might also prevent the complete ruination of thousands of people’s lives.