'Get Britain Working' risks becoming empty words without urgent reforms to the benefits system

Trailing the government’s ‘Get Britain Working’ white paper this weekend, Keir Starmer made headlines by promising in an article for the Mail on Sunday to reduce the ‘bulging benefits bill’, which he characterised as ‘blighting our society’. It sounded like a return to the same old tired framing that has long dogged social security policymaking in Britain.

Yet despite this unhelpful rhetoric, the content of the white paper which was published earlier today is broadly positive. The government is planning to reform Jobcentres to focus on providing more meaningful support, rather than simply monitoring compliance with the conditions of benefit claims. There will be targeted funding to help join up local work, health and skills support. And the government also announced an enhanced support offer for 18 to 21-year-olds.

These measures are all welcome and, taken in isolation, could even sound like the first tentative steps away from the punitive and prescriptive conditionality that currently dominates our social security system. But what the white paper did not include was any substantive detail about the government’s plans for our threadbare social security system. The government needs to get social security reform right if it is to make a success of its plans to reduce economic inactivity.

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There are concerning signs that the government may be looking to bring forward dangerous and counterproductive reforms that will hinder its efforts to support disabled people into work. The white paper only briefly discusses health and disability benefit reform, with the detail to come in a consultation planned for spring 2025. But the government announced at the autumn budget that it will bring forward £3bn of cuts to disability benefits as part of these reforms. What this means for disabled people who rely on vital support from our social security system is of significant concern.

Rather than reducing the numbers of people who are economically inactive due to ill-health and disability, there is a very significant risk that the cuts will simply amount to plunging some disabled people into deep poverty, which could end up only making it more difficult for them to engage with the new support offer the government is planning to introduce. Disabled people need to be protected from deep poverty if they are going to have a realistic chance at entering the workforce.

The success of the government’s reforms to employment support is also contingent on removing the other barriers to employment that exist within our social security system for disabled people. Our research shows that the inadequate basic rate of universal credit – just £91 per week for a single adult – increases the importance of getting and retaining disability benefits.

For many, these benefits are essential to avoiding deep poverty. This inadequacy also increases the very real risk of taking steps towards work. Many disabled people have the valid fear that if they try work but are unable to sustain employment then this will be held against them in their next assessment, leading to their benefits being taken away and leaving them plunged into deep poverty.

The government has made a welcome commitment to review universal credit, with a view to ending the widespread use of food banks. But it was concerning to see today’s white paper make no mention of the impact that the inadequacy of universal credit has on preventing people from entering work.

When it sets out its plans for health and disability benefit reform in the spring, the government must ensure it protects disabled people from being plunged into deep poverty. Alongside this, we need an urgent plan to increase the basic rate of universal credit. Without ensuring that our social security system properly protects people from poverty, the government runs the risk of allowing its promise to ‘Get Britain Working’ to become empty rhetoric.

Anela Anwar, chief executive of anti-poverty charity Z2K, reacts to the government’s ‘Get Britain Working’ white paper.

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