Welfare and Benefits

The debate over welfare benefits is beginning to set Labour into something of a spin - as the party struggles to explain how it can be in favour of reform when:

• Labour did nothing to reform the welfare system while in government for 13 years - between 1997 and 2010
• Labour says it supports the principle of reform - but opposes every single proposal put forward by the Coalition Government
• Labour has no proposals of its own to offer - despite talking the talk for for years about the importance of making work pay

I read an article in the Guardian the other day by Polly Toynbee - which struck me as particularly silly - and here's an extract of what she had to say:

"What a gift the Philpott case has been, a bizarre and monstrous distraction to poison the public debate in the week benefits are cut while the richest cash in. In a leader, the Times calls for benefits to be paid for only two children per family. Clueless or callous, they think children are what Ann Widdecombe calls benefit "meal tickets". Rowntree and Child Poverty Action Group show the £9 a day for a child is at least £10 a week too little: most parents go without some meals to feed their children. Research in Why Money Matters shows that the poorest families are most likely to spend extra money on their children. What would the Times do? Most of the tax credit bill is paid to working parents, including full-timers on the minimum wage, to keep children above the breadline. Would the Times support a living wage, or should those families use food banks?"

Now I support a living wage and have been doing so for at least as long as Polly Toynbee.

But the truth is that Labour and the trade unions have been a road block to a living wage for years - that's what Single Status was all about - achieving higher pay and equal pay for the many thousands of low-paid council jobs done predominantly by women workers.

Back in 1997 and 1999 that is, of course - not 16 years later in 2013. 

The other thing I'm confused about is this Rowntree report business - the logic of which is that someone like Mick Philpott was actually being shortchanged by the state - in fact he  ought really to have been given another £100 + a week as his welfare benefits weren't nearly enough - according to this report.

Yet the figures now being reported in the media suggest that Mick Philpott received over £60,000 a year in welfare benefits - net and free of tax - the equivalent of an annual salary of £100,000.

The real question, for me, is why so many people are having so many children - sometimes in large numbers - if they can't afford to look after properly, without a sizeable handout from the state?

Many of the fathers involved just seem to walk away without paying any child support - which brings no sanctions or repercussions - leaving the state to pick up the bill.    

Now I'm not interested in demonising anyone - but I'd quite like an answer to that question myself.