Labour should be tough on social security, in the right ways

We lefties are supposed to be open-handed with the taxpayer's money, if the Press is to be believed. Anyone needing to supplement their resources should just be able to apply for this or that and receive it in due course.

It has never been this way; nor should it. Our first desire is that everyone should be able to earn a living, so that social security becomes unnecessary. In order to be able to fund, though, those calls on social security which are merited and important, we have to ensure that the country first raises the proper sums from those who ought to pay; and then does not profligately hand it all out to the wrong people.

It has become quite loathsome how people unable to afford for their meagre rations to be reduced are demonised and squeezed by this awful Government, so lets help Labour to get it right when we are back in power. Here are a couple of true-life examples which I encountered only this week to help them find better targets:

Ms A is 22. She is a single mother of one baby, living in the home of her middle-class professional parents. She is casting around to find a home for her, her boyfriend and her baby, near to where she has been brought up. Mummy and Daddy will guarantee her rent - though are not proposing to pay it. In the area concerned, rents are expensive so she plans to seek housing benefit. Is this right, when by moving out of her parental home she will be burdening the taxpayer?

Mrs B is in her 60s and very wealthy, with a very old mother suffering from dementia. Her mother lives a few miles away still in her own flat, where she receives substantial care and support from the NHS and Social Services. Her daughter visits regularly. The latter wants to go away on a foreign holiday for a week, ie will not be able to make her usual filial visits for a few days. Her mother's care will be uninterrupted. The daughter is claiming to be a carer, entitled to respite and the funding for this.

The cost to the State of these 2 examples may not break the bank but they exemplify how it is so often not the poorest in society who rip it off, but those who do not need help at all. It is surely to these that the attention of tax and social security scrutiny should turn, alongside the tax avoiders and bonus grabbers. As a "lefty" I will be happy to be tough on this sort of abuse.

Health is where the home is

It must by now be a given that integrated, whole person care is the vision for the future of Local Authority Adult Social Services and the NHS. Reducing hospital admissions and stays is essential, in fewer centres of excellence but with wider community outreach. Having a single nominee to whom all issues relating to wellbeing can be referred by each patient, with the authority to channel resources and with home as the default point of delivery is an idea which must be brought to fruition. But how? Demands on medical and care resources already exceed supply and will continue to grow. With current budgets for adult care and health in separate hands all clinging onto every penny they can in the face of cuts; with hospital, GP and care priorities varying in different parts of the country; with gaps in skills and capacity required to fulfil the required roles; with the need for a change in culture across tens of thousands of healthcare professionals; and with the problem of defining care vs subsistence costs, this transition cannot be easy or rapid. Labour is however a party with a value of long-termism.

So what would we have a Labour Government promise by way of steps towards the vision?

First, it has to redefine the nation’s priorities. Just what is the role of the State? How much tax income should be raised and what are the priorities for its use? Labour must ignore the Right’s sneering accusations that it will merely borrow or tax more. Within existing financial resources, responsible application of funds does not need merely to reflect the current Government’s choices. Nor, we argue, does the economic policy have to reflect the constraints applied by Osborne. This is a wealthy country which has used its credit to refinance banks and stimulate house-buying. It can do the same to rebuild those aspects of the State being wrecked for the sake of neoliberal ideology. If the economy is about people as well as finance, the building of integrated care must have precedence over debt repayment, low taxes for the wealth, and unjustified vanity projects like HS2 and Trident replacement. This need not only entail direct taxation as its source. Equity release on existing homes; loans against the collateral of estates after death; housing bonds purchased earlier in life backed by a State bank are all options which the State can facilitate to avoid having to levy excessive new taxes. It can no longer be taboo to require people with wealth to apply this to their own care rather than to bequeathing it to their descendents and depending on others’ taxes.

How, specifically, is this money to be directed? Local authorities must be given the duty to meet the care needs of their senior and disabled populations to a decent standard, backed by central Government guarantees for the financing. First, encouraging people to elect to live where they can obtain integrated care is highly desirable but requires enabling. Meeting the increasing demand for single-person, independent living is crucial. Building complexes whether rented or owned, houses or flats, in which shared skilled care can be available to people as needed, will create jobs while offering people the best chance of staying out of hospital. Consistent with our conclusions on both economic growth and the environment, home-building should be a major plank of the future of healthcare in this country. Second, it must fund the recruitment, training and proper remuneration and management of professional care workers, both residential and community-based, in sufficient quantity to provide the levels of care any person would wish for their own family member, regardless of wealth.

Politics must be rooted in communities

Just back from a leisure visit to Strasbourg. Lovely city. What struck me was its self-confidence and sense of identity. This goes back all through its history, when it has more than once declared itself a republic (good idea!) with its own identity, economy and religious or humanist attitudes different from those of its neighbours or "host" country. Alsace's food, wine, architecture and culture are quite distinct from those of France [now] or Germany [at other times].
So why report this? It seems to me that one of this country's problems lies in its London-centricity. What is written about in the media is dominated by London, whether this concerns fashion, arts or politics. A small coterie of institutions mainly based in London dominates thought and action, often with little understanding or consideration for other parts of the country.
Where are our Strasbourgs? Until the middle of the last century cities like Birmingham and Leeds, Newcastle and Liverpool were the powerhouses of the country, with their industries and civic economies writ large and manifested in the great buildings and influence on national policy. The post-war period has seen this diluted and industry has been wrecked in the name of financial services, with local government reduced to insignificance by the centrism of both Labour and Tory governments. Now we are in a presidential age with few voters really aware of local leaders' names and roles.
Labour has to reconnect with people across the country; people whose lives are in communities, not merely subservient to London. We should, before it is all lost, celebrate local cultures, local differences, local needs by encouraging local politics, empowered by local knowledge and with control of assets and tax income. It takes true leadership to let go - Ed Miliband can show this leadership by relaxing some aspects of central control and allowing localism to flourish instead of stifling the country in a blanket of uniformity in which nobody feels pride or engagement.

Tom Serpell