We Need an An Essentials Guarantee: So No One Falls Through the Cracks

During the welfare debate last year, of which I was one of the leading members, I took a lot of evidence from disabled organisations and disabled individuals, and it was quite clear that the benefits system – even in its form then, forget about what might be happening in the future – was inadequate for them to meet their daily living needs. People are having to go to food banks or rely on friends and family for loans. I’m a great believer in a universal safety net that catches everybody. The welfare state is full of holes, absolutely full of holes.

Welfare should provide sufficient income for people when you need it. That means that you don’t then have to rely on charity or friends and family, and it means making sure that it covers the basics for living – keeping your home warm, having enough to eat, that sort of thing. We need to up our game on the welfare state and make it truly universal.

I raised this in parliament with Pat McFadden, secretary of state for work and pensions, and I said it needed to be a universal safety net, not a trapdoor through which people are falling. He didn’t take the trap door part – he just took the ‘trapped’ part and said: ‘Well, of course we don’t want people trapped on benefits. We’ve got to get them off benefits.’ That wasn’t the point I was making. I’m all in favour of people finding work who can work, but what about those who can’t? He dodged the question, basically, which I wasn’t surprised about.

I’ve got an early day motion down, which currently standing has 24 names on it. I’m hoping to get that up to the 50s. Some Liberal Democrats have signed it, some Greens. This isn’t just a Labour issue, because the welfare state, at the end of the day, should be for all of us. We all fall on hard times from time to time. Members of our family do, or our friends do.

We need to ensure that we support people so that they can reach their potential. And we also need to accept that there are economic benefits. If you support people on welfare, they’ll spend that money locally. They’re not going miles and miles away to spend that money. So it’s a circular argument about putting some money back in.

See my early day motion here: https://edm.parliament.uk/early-day-motion/65077/essentials-guarantee

See my full interview with the Big Issue here: https://www.bigissue.com/news/social-justice/labour-mp-neil-duncan-jordan-essentials-guarantee/