Cameron at 10 by Anthony Seldon

Author:Anthony Seldon
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2015-08-24T16:00:00+00:00

TWENTY-FOUR

Warfare Over Welfare

May 2010–December 2014

‘We will all need to hold our nerve,’ Welfare Secretary Iain Duncan Smith tells Cameron early in the New Year. ‘Everything is happening in 2013. It’s going to be the bumpiest year we face on welfare. I don’t need anyone to blink.’1 He was not being alarmist. In April 2013 alone, housing-benefit changes (including the controversial spare-room subsidy or ‘bedroom tax’) come into effect, the Personal Independence Payment scheme (PIP) replaces the Disability Living Allowance, the ‘pathfinder’ trial begins for IDS’s flagship policy, Universal Credit (UC) – the merging of six means-tested benefits and tax credits into one monthly payment – and in July, the household benefit cap is introduced. The 2010–15 government sees a welter of activity on welfare. This chapter’s focus is on UC. For IDS, working to fulfil a lifelong dream of welfare reform, this year is critical.

Public concerns have been building about UC, and continue to do so well into 2013. In December 2012, Philip Langsdale, who had been brilliantly project-managing it, died after only a few weeks in post. In February 2013, the Major Projects Authority (MPA) orders a ‘reset’ of UC, while in September the National Audit Office (NAO) heavily criticises the IT programme, claiming it has resulted in £40.1 million in wasted expenditure. In November, the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) chaired by Margaret Hodge, nicknamed ‘the fishwife’ at the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) for her aggressive manner, turns on IDS. It all leads to a widespread belief that UC is a failed scheme that will never see the light of day.

DWP feel these critical reports are woefully out of date, providing analysis based on recommendations already initiated by IDS and the department in 2011. It is not surprising that given the huge changes in welfare reform over this parliament, there would be teething problems, they respond.

IDS, and his UC policy, have been a source of division between prime minister and chancellor. Both men think very differently. Cameron is fervently committed to welfare reform, but does not immerse himself in the detail. ‘I remember a couple of meetings about a welfare programme in Number 10 in the first few months: there was very little interest there, and it was only with a lowly adviser,’ recalls a DWP official. IDS himself makes it clear to Cameron on his appointment in 2010 that he only wants to be Welfare Secretary if he is allowed to introduce UC: Cameron readily agrees and says he will stand by him. Cameron might lack IDS’s deep Christian faith, but is fired by a similar moral zeal for welfare reform, to ensure that benefits are targeted only on those who need or deserve them. His overtly moral approach is alien to Osborne’s world view. ‘The fundamental tension is that George and Iain are not natural bedfellows,’ says a senior figure in the Treasury. Osborne forms the view, shared by some in Whitehall, that IDS is ‘too stubborn to come up with the costs and consequences of what he is proposing’.

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