After welfare, where next for Miliband’s social security agenda?

Ed Miliband’s speech last week gave us a clear insight into how a future Labour government would bear down on the costs of working-age welfare while rebuilding public support for a system grounded in clear centre-left values. As Labour takes forward its policy review, it will need to think through what a similar approach might look like in other areas of social policy.

While Miliband rightly spelled out the need to put the benefits system on a more sustainable footing, his case was rooted in a principled argument for a majoritarian welfare state, rather than a retreat to a safety net for the most needy. This approach is grounded in reciprocity and mutual obligation – made real through a revival of the contributory principle in specific areas and a clear commitment not to allow large numbers of people to drift away from the world of work and into long-term dependency. Cash transfers would remain vital but they would be complemented by greater investment in popular, local services like childcare and valuable assets like housing.

On social security then, we have a sense of what a distinctive Labour offer will be, and there’s new thinking about housing policy too. IPPR’s Condition of Britain programme is looking at what a similarly distinctive reform agenda could look like across social policy.

On childcare, it would see a universal offer of affordable childcare for all young children complemented with extra support for families who need it. I’ve recently seen excellent outreach and family support work on a visit to a children’s centre in south Manchester, with self-esteem classes and help with jobsearch for parents alongside free childcare for kids. Parents said the centre felt like family, a local institution where parents can offer mutual support and build friendships with trusted staff. Meanwhile, to recognise contribution and support employment working families could be offered extra entitlements to free or low-cost childcare.

Good quality childcare helps young children get ready for school but once they leave school, many young people find it tough to make the move into work. All young people not going to university need access to quality vocational education and clear routes into the labour market. A separate training and employment offer for young people driven by local programmes, as in Germany and the Netherlands, could be more effective than the disjointed approach we have in England. Dedicated financial support for young people committed to training or looking for work, backed up with a job guarantee, would give a clear steer towards mutual obligation. More responsibility on employers to train and recruit young people, with the right incentives, would ensure obligations are shared by young people, the state and business.

In neighbourhood policy, the major regeneration schemes of previous decades would be left behind (not least because they are no longer affordable), with a new focus on building up local, sustainable institutions capable of mobilising neighbourhoods to solve their own problems. On crime and disorder, a renewed focus on anti-social behaviour would see power and responsibility resting with local areas and less reliance on bureaucratic enforcement measures. In all of these areas, there is much work to be done to flesh out a convincing story and a radical but pragmatic policy agenda. But we are starting to see the contours of a distinctively centre-left approach to major social policy questions, rooted in fiscal realities but ambitious about what people can achieve by working together.

Kayte Lawton is a Senior Research Fellow at IPPR