Tony McNulty (Employment Minister) was asked by BBC Radio 5 whether he could survive on £60.50 a week and, unsurprisingly, his reply was no! Yet McNulty expects others to live on that pathetic amount of money….
Committee Room 10 was packed today listening to various speakers about the draconian Welfare Reform Bill. The rally was organised initially by the PCS in conjunction with the TUC, TUCG (Trade Union Co-ordinating Group), Unite, GMB, Unison, Compass, Release, NIPSA, UWCC, CPAG.
The Bill is speeding through Parliament, now at committee stage, then amendments and third reading. John McDonnell MP spoke about the process/progress of the Bill and amendments being put forward in hope to kill it off. And have some democratic debate about this pernicious Bill….
Sanctions will increase child poverty, penalise lone parents, claimants, and people with disabilities. It is a vindictive piece of legislation that seeks to vilify and stigmatise people for being poor. And parallels were made with Fred the Shred, banking bailouts, tax evasion and tax avoidance…. yet until free market piracy when into economic meltdown, the worship of corporate capitalism and the ideology of neo-liberalism wasn’t stigmatised or vilified it was held up as something to be admired and adhered to. But it is easier to scapegoat the poor and powerless in this society, to be described as ‘workshy’ really means worthless. Along with the myth of culture of dependency.
And with a recession, where job losses are occurring at an alarming rate, the question to ask Purnell/McNulty is…where are the jobs…? The Bill is not only draconian it is unworkable.
And with this crisis, it’s patently obvious that supply side economics don’t work. Privatisation and contracting out the benefits system will be about making profits.
Sanctions are not effective, they cause further distress, poverty and will inevitably have a negative impact. People need concrete support and help like universal, free childcare. Not threats and penalisation.
The speaker from the GMB spoke about Remploy and the selling-out of 2,500 workers who are now unemployed.
Harry Fletcher from NAPO and speaker from Release spoke about Clause 9 (Schedule 3) drug users can lose their benefits if they don’t comply with drug treatment programmes. And what attacks the core of civil liberties is the potential sharing of information between the DWP and the criminal justice system. This utterly undermines and erodes the right to privacy especially having to declare whether you are a user (subject, as well, to invasive urine testing). This further stigmatises people who are already marginalised, it is about coercion and control by the state; ‘do what we say or you’ll your benefits’…. And people will fall off the benefits radar (which NL won’t give a damn about).
Harry Fletcher made excellent points about human rights abuses NL has been involved in the past couple of weeks (complicity in torture) and obsession with secrecy (cabinet minutes about the Iraq War). And now further attacks on civil liberties and freedoms with the Welfare Reform Bill.
There are around 240,000 people addicted to either drugs/alcohol, and many will have mental distress. Enforcing treatment by threat of sanctions will be destructive.
The Bill reflects the draconian and social authoritarianism of NL. Workfare is the politics and ideology of the workhouse. The humiliation and degradation of people having to work for their dole is nothing more than soul destroying and implies criminality.
We need a society that pays people a decent wage, along with up-rating of benefits where people can live and not just exist. Universal, free childcare, progressive taxation, and so on… A real inclusive society as opposed to punishing the poor.
Article by John McDonnell in Morning Star
