The real welfare challenge
The real welfare challenge
The Secretary of the Socialist Campaign Group of MPs.
"I challenge each and every one of us over the welfare state. We are spending more and getting less, failing those who need it and sometimes helping those who don't."
This was the gauntlet of welfare reform Tony Blair threw down at Conference. For a long time those of us who have opposed cuts in welfare spending have argued it was untrue to say the welfare state was unaffordable. Yet I now believe that one area of welfare abuse can no longer be ignored. It is a part of the dependency culture which has grown malignantly, and where fraud and abuse is rife, parental responsibility is negligent, and where a tough line on delinquent behaviour, crime hotspots and curfews is desperately needed. It is time to get tough on corporate welfare.
At Conference delegates ran the gauntlet of corporate merchandising just to get in, and ran the drinks' tray of corporate hospitality to get out. Such largesse may have been impressive, but it was also tax deductible. The costs are paid not out of profits or dividends, but out of tax obligations. What made the process even more fascinating was that many of the sponsors are also at the front of the queue for government handouts and tax favours.
These are the sartorial squeegee merchants who beg for government favour. Sometimes, even their patter is the same when tapping you for a little something from the public purse - "Of course we would really like to come to your country. But, honest guv, you'd need to build us a factory first, give us the land, put in the services and infrastructure and arrange for a university research and support package." And in return? Well, we will promise you a glittering future and zillions of jobs ... No, they won't all be immediate, but if you could see your way to getting the TEC or Enterprise Council to support these jobs, and pay for half of them under New Deal, we'd be off to a flying start ... A loan? A loan? Why would we consider a loan? This is the market, not the benefit system. Oh, and one last thing, could you just have a word with the local authority and arrange a ten year exemption from the Business Rate?
This may be begging, but it's also a class act. More than that, it confuses me. If welfare is demeaning, if it breeds a culture of dependency, sloth and dishonesty, why do we saddle big companies with the burdens of subsidy, tax concessions and hand outs which currently run to over £23 billion per year? In a society driven by Labour's values, shouldn't we, at the very least, be reminding them that rights are no longer separable from responsibilities?
In a moral sense it would require us to be much tougher on those who parade their poverty before our eyes. Rather than going for lone parents, why not begin with a look at the conduct of corporate freeloaders? Many have an international record of loose living and fecklessness that would send the Child Support Agency ballistic. They have shacked up with one country after another, succumbing only to the allure of whoever waved the biggest wad of money at them.
From the northeast of England to South East Asia these global strutters have spawned thousands of jobs (for children and adults), and promptly abandoned them when a delectable bit of market "tottie" lured them elsewhere. If children are for life and not just inward investment, and if abandoned partners have every right to expect support, we need a new package to foster global parenting responsibility.
Obligatory parent (company) classes could educate chief executives about the importance of loving and lasting relationships. Attachment of (overseas) Earnings Orders may be needed in pursuit of reckless and reluctant payers. Tough laws for "TWOCers" those who "take cars without the owners consent" - should be applied to those who steal jobs and livelihoods in the dead of night, devastating the lives of whole communities.
We need new policies on hot spots and curfews. Many of those most guilty of anti-social behaviour are those who maraud around the world money markets. These are probably among the world's twenty worst crime hot spots, but by tougher policing policies we could bring them to heel.
A speculation tax of half of one per cent on the global casino deals of $1.3 trillion per day, would raise enough money to pay for family responsibility programmes on a global scale. Link this with curfew policies - speculative capital having to be back home by 9pm - and we would be doing something brave and bold to bring global nuisances and tearaways back into line.
Could we do it? Of course we could. We have an Iron Chancellor, an iron commitment. Backbone not backdown is what Britain needs. Billions are wasted every year through corporate fraud and abuse and we must have the courage to take the tough decisions to tackle it.
This, after all, is our own money paid for in tax contributions that the rest of us tip into corporate welfare, and without the barest mention of stakeholder obligations or social ownership. Would the corporations like such tough measures, which balanced rights against responsibilities? Of course not.
But, as Tony said, better to be unpopular than wrong.
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