The Universal Credit delay proves a weak government can be a good thing
(Photo by Leon Neal/Getty Images)
Faced with another five days of debate on Theresa May’s Withdrawal Deal – and the near inevitable Government defeat which will follow – you’d be forgiven for thinking that minority governments are a bit of a nightmare. But another story from the weekend suggests that sometimes, a strong Parliament and a weak government can be very useful indeed.
On Sunday, it was revealed that Amber Rudd, the fifth Work and Pensions Secretary in three years, will delay a vote in the Commons which would have called on MPs to allow for 3m benefit claimants to be moved on to the new flagship programme. She will instead ask MPs to approve the transfer of 10,000 claimants under a pilot scheme that will be closely monitored, and MPs will then be asked to approve a further roll-out.
Rudd is a pragmatic politician and a compassionate Conservative, and has probably been putting pressure on May to delay the vote since she took up the post of Work and Pensions Secretary back in November. But the Prime Minister is stubborn, and reading between the lines of what she said on the Marr show, it sounds as though it was only the threat of an imminent and humiliating defeat on the UC vote which finally persuaded her that Rudd’s pilot plan was the only sensible way forward.
If that was indeed the case, then the Government’s weakness has been good for the country. The aims of the Universal Credit policy, to simplify the benefit system and increase incentives to work, were always sensible. But roll-out has been a nightmare from the get-go. Research by the Resolution Foundation carried out last year calculated that 2.2 million families were expected to gain under the system and 3.2 million to lose, and single parents would be hit the hardest. Since then, there have been countless horror stories about those losers, including, most recently, Neil Wright, a father of six who was left baffled after receiving just one pence in Universal Credit to last him a month.
The Conservative MPs representing people like Mr Wright, many of them in marginal seats, have been falling over each other to speak out against the way the change has been implemented, and, given Theresa May’s lack of majority, would have almost certainly cost the government the vote.
Complicated policies like Universal Credit depend on flexibility, from the Department trying to implement them, the Treasury and Number 10. Sophisticated computer systems like the one calculating Mr Wright’s benefits, for instance, often cost more than expected, and if the policy is to work, there must be room in the budget for that. But in the case of Universal Credit, all three have been completely rigid.
This weekend has shown that with the right pressure from a powerful Parliament, DWP and Number 10 are both capable of wiggle room. And, when Rudd’s pilot scheme proves, as everyone suspects, that roll-out if failing because the transition hasn’t been funded properly, the Treasury is likely to give a little too.
If Universal Credit ever works, it will be because a weak Government was forced to become a flexible one.
