The Labor Movement’s Welfare Reform Dance Requires Tempo

Welfare reform is like Europe. The prime minister and his chancellor might not see eye to eye. Last week it became clear that Andy Burnham and John Healey disagree over the desirability as well as the practicalities of Britain adopting freedom of movement of labor with the European Union: Healey is more suspicious; Burnham more starry-eyed. But that division can be charted with considerable precision. The picture is more complicated on welfare reform. Indeed, at times both men appear unable to agree even with themselves, the independent says.

Healey, as the Treasury guy, would be expected to want faster progress in putting public finances on a sustainable foundation. In his latest intervention, Healey sends mixed signals to BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg. The chancellor is reassuring markets one minute: “We will bring the benefits bill down…the overall bill has to come down. A bigger and bigger benefits bill is nothing progressive. That’s an economic duty, but it’s also a moral one.”

But pressed, Healey falls back from his Gladstonian rectitude to the mvaguer“vibe” the prime minister normally prefers, adding that reform has to be “in a way that reflects our values” ,a revival of the messy neo-corporatist strategy involving trade unions and employers. Burnham has made a point of rejecting “crude cuts” but he has also sounded a paradoxical note of urgency, saying that he also wants the cost to come down “as soon as possible”.

Crucially, the chancellor hinted that social security spending would be falling by the time of the next general election (assuming that this is in 2029, not next Spring), only for Number 10 to clarify that while the government is “working flat out” on this, the prime minister will not commit to a timescale.

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