By Maeve McGoldrick
I’ve spent a fascinating couple of days discussing welfare reform at Conservative conference, meeting some of the people leading Conservative welfare policy and talking to them about the experiences of people trying to get off benefits and into work in Newham. A few thoughts so far…
Publicly, Conservatives are talking about their new Work Programme – bringing together various welfare-to-work schemes into one programme. We were disappointed that this didn’t include recognition of the way the benefits system needs to change, so it’s reassuring that Iain Duncan Smith’s report from a couple of weeks ago is still being widely discussed here. Indeed, there are rumours that David Freud – the architect of this weeks proposals – is receptive to IDS’ plans, so there’s still hope that future proposals will address the problems in the benefits system.
The Conservative leadership knows it needs to appear tough, to appeal to voters (sad, but seemingly true at the moment). They also know they cannot announce a new programme costing £4bn in the midst of a conference focused on cuts. Nevertheless, there are hopeful signs that benefit reform – helping people progress off benefits into work – is still on the agenda.
Finally, it has been nice to see real discussions around the most excluded, with people accepting that no-one is too ‘hard to reach’. And Freud seems pretty determined, now as a Conservative, not to give up on welfare reform as’ being too hard to fix’. Well our message is perhaps that the benefits system is not ‘too hard-to-fix’ either. You just need to make sure you listen to those who know best – people on benefits.
