Welfare is not a human right – it’s an unworkable policy

If Labour wants to damage their chances of winning the next general election, the proposal to make benefits a human right is sure to do the trick. It manages to combine two reliably provocative issues – benefits and human rights – to create a highly combustible mix. No wonder Ian Duncan-Smith used the word ‘bomb-proof’. I assume he meant Willie Blain’s office, where the proposal is being developed with the blessing of John Cruddas, Ed Miliband’s policy co-ordinator.

The attention received by figures such as Mick Philpott and Jeremy Bamber shows that nothing excites the public like welfare and human rights.

Philpott was not an example of the typical welfare claimant; he was an exceptional case. However the outrage revealed an undercurrent of frustration with a system that could allow this to happen. Spending on welfare ballooned under the Labour government, way beyond inflation, by roughly 60 per cent according to Duncan-Smith, which suggests that people are abusing welfare. An Ipsos Mori poll found that 59 per cent want to cut the welfare bill. Enshrining access to welfare as a human right would have the opposite effect.

Bamber won his appeal to the European Court of Human Rights against his life sentence, on the basis that it constituted ‘inhuman and degrading’ treatment according to article three of the convention. Of course, this story had an anti-Europe dimension, but it also provoked disbelief at the way in which human rights had overridden common sense. The saga over the attempted deportation of Abu Qatada stemmed from a similar sense of frustration. Finding more ways to enshrine unpopular decisions won’t do Labour any favours.

Welfare is simply not a human right. A human right is something inalienable, which applies regardless of the situation (unless perhaps you violate someone else’s human rights). Life, freedom from torture and servitude, liberty, a fair trial, expression, and so on – these are not equivalent to the jobseeker’s allowance. Welfare is a privilege of living in a society as developed and progressive as the United Kingdom. But it is a privilege which must be earned by at least trying to contribute to the pot from which welfare is drawn. It is not inalienable. It can and should be withdrawn from anyone who abuses the welfare system or society in general. Under no circumstances should the right to life be withdrawn. That is the difference.

Granting welfare as a human right implies people are struggling to gain access to it. The situation is in fact the opposite: it is too easy to access and abuse the system.

Consider the consequences. If access to welfare were a human right, any kind of withdrawal or reduction would be subject to an appeal which could go right to the top of the justice system as these human rights cases often do, because they are so hard to interpret consistently. The government estimates 67,000 households will be affected by the welfare cap in 2013/14. Imagine if even 10 per cent of those households felt hard done by and decided to appeal. Consider the backlog this would create in the courts. And once a few appeals start to drag on, households possibly on smaller incomes who accepted the cap initially will start to cotton on. Labour has not thought this through.

This proposal has the whiff of a political manoeuvre designed to get the Liberal Democrats, permanent advocates for any human right, onside in the hope of forming a coalition in 2015. It will not curb abuses in the welfare system; it will encourage them.

Not only is the policy unworkable, but it ignores voters’ concerns about welfare. Labour will portray their proposal as an attempt to strengthen the right of low-income families to a better life, but voters are smarter than this. This is not the solution. It will only make the system more convoluted, unfair and unrewarding.

(2013-07-20/udn)