Labour and the Welfare Bill

First of all, it’s worth pointing out that the Labour Party should always be on the side of working people, families and the vulnerable. We should always seek to protect children and the disabled and we should not back any Bill that will push people further towards poverty and despair or further away from a job and a decent standard of living. Anyone who would seek to change that position is not fit to lead our party. Now that's done, I can get to the main point of this blog, the Welfare Bill.

There is undoubtedly desire for welfare reform from the public. The last election taught us that and the evidence collected since clearly shows that Labour isn't trusted to carry out this reform. Labour needs to take the need for welfare reform seriously and back Government reforms where they work while opposing them where they won't. There is also an increasing demand for the state to shift the burden of making work pay on to employers. Again, this is something that the Labour Party should back, but, any Bill purporting to make work pay by shifting the burden from the state to the employer, should only be supported if it can actually achieve the goal of making work pay at the same time as decreasing the burden on the state.

As a party, we should be saying to the public that we back the aim of making work pay and of shifting the burden from the state to employers. The Labour Party should not support measures that demonstrably do not make work pay, even if they do take some of the burden off of the state. Removing the burden isn't enough on its own for the Labour Party to support the Government. Any measures must also ensure that working people, and particularly families with children, do not lose out and get pushed further into or towards poverty. They must also protect the vulnerable, and that’s not just disabled people but people whose circumstances mean they need extra support to ensure their safety.

It is for the reasons above that Labour should have voted against the Tories Welfare Bill at its second reading as well as its first reading. It simply did not come close to meeting the criteria that should drive our every decision on welfare and work. That the Parliamentary Labour Party chose not to vote against its second reading was wrong, but that doesn't make those who did vote against it right.

Unfortunately, by taking up a position before squaring it with her cabinet colleagues, our stand-in leader has put the party in the ridiculous position of looking like we don’t take any of the points I raised above seriously. That three of our four prospective leaders spoke out against the Bill, and that two of them pushed for a Labour amendment within the cabinet, will make very little difference to perceptions of the party on either side of the argument.

As a party, we are now in the ludicrous position of looking like we don’t take reform seriously to those who prioritise that, but, at the same time, appearing not to take the needs of the vulnerable and the poor seriously to those who prioritise that. In truth, the Labour Party takes both seriously. It is also true that the prospective leader coming under most fire from the left of our party, Andy Burnham, vocally stands for both reform and protection. He took the right line and has been vilified by both the left and the right of the Labour Party in scenes that will remind many older than me of the 70s and 80s. I thought we’d learned the lessons of factionalism, but it feels to me like it’s very much in vogue.

It may seem odd that I am against abstaining on the Government’s Welfare Bill but in favour of the position taken by Andy Burnham. An explanation is clearly needed. In my view, his actions were largely forced upon by him by others, and, apart from throwing the whole idea of collective responsibility out, this was his only option. The reasoning behind this is that, once you've lost the argument in cabinet, you can only really do one of two things. First, you can respect the collective decision and vote with the whip, or second, you can resign and defy the whip. There is no other option. Option one allows you to continue to make your argument within the Shadow Cabinet and respects the collective responsibility you expect others to respect once you're Leader. Option two means you are removed from the realms of decision making, therefore making your arguments far less impactful, and would be without any justification in expecting your fellow Shadow Cabinet members and MPs to support the collective decision once you are Leader.

Because of these limited options, even though he disagreed with it, Andy Burnham was right to act as he did. Having spoken out against the Welfare Bill, pushed for the party to vote against it and pushed for a Labour amendment calling for the Bill not to proceed to its second reading, he had no choice but to stick to his principles regarding collective responsibility or to resign. As I've already stated, by resigning you lose any credible authority when asking the party to follow your lead as Leader, which leaves remaining loyal and coming back to fight the Welfare Bill another day. There will be many more days to fight it. It may have been lost somewhat in the hysteria, but the Bill hasn't been passed and has to go through the committee stage, where Labour will oppose it line by line, and then a third reading, at which Andy Burnham has already stated a Labour Party led by him will vote against it.

In my view, Andy Burnham has taken the middle road. He's kept true to the crucial idea of collective responsibility and is continuing to make the argument for why Labour must embrace change, but do so in a way which marries with our principles. It seems to have passed many by, but he's also a vocal critic of the Welfare Bill and has promised that, with him as Leader, the Labour Party will oppose it. He seems to be the only one taking a more holistic approach to our current woes.To his right and to his left, we see either the refusal to disagree with the Tories because we lost and they won or the refusal to accept that the public largely back reform and that to consider any such thing doesn't mean selling your soul to the devil. I'm worried by the hysteria being whipped up, and I'm disappointed to see factionalism becoming entrenched within the party and in its wider support.

To win again, and therefore be able to right the wrongs of the Tories, we can’t allow this factionalism to tear us apart as it once did. Neither lurching right nor left will make Labour electable again. Politics, and public opinion with it, is more complex, more nuanced than that. The Labour Party must embrace reform, but it must do so in a way that stays true to our principles but also appeals to the electorate. We shouldn't abandon what we stand for because the Tories won, and we can’t cede the centre ground because we’re angry, upset and want a comfort blanket.