Benefits alone are not the solution to poverty

THERE’S no doubt the adverse effects of this pandemic have fallen especially hard on the least well-off in our society.

The low-paid in retail and hospitality have borne the brunt of job losses, and school closures have made it difficult for unemployed parents to go out and look for other work.

Inevitably, many more are having to rely on benefits. Which is why Chancellor Rishi Sunak did the right thing in raising universal credit by £20 a week at the beginning of the crisis to help ease the load on disadvantaged families.

He is beginning to realise, however, that once given, such ‘temporary’ support measures are not so easily taken back.

The question now is, should the uplift (which costs £6billion a year) end on March 31 as planned, be extended for a few months until the economy picks up, or be made permanent?

Like the recent free school meals furore, it is an issue charged with emotion.

Never slow to weaponise the poor for political advantage, Labour used it in the Commons yesterday as a stick to beat the Government with.

They presented it as a straight moral choice – extend the increase and show you care, or scrap it and show you don’t.

Such a caricature of this important debate is crude, tawdry and unfair but, as we learned during the school meals campaign, moral blackmail can be highly effective. No one in politics wants to be seen as heartless.

In truth, this Government has probably done more to help the poor – lifting benefits, significantly increasing the minimum wage, supporting job retention – than any other in recent history.

Yet Mr Sunak may still be pushed into a compromise, perhaps extending the universal credit rise until May, when furlough payments are also due to end.

Ultimately though, piecemeal benefit handouts will solve nothing. There must be a coherent plan to get Britain moving again, whilst also repairing the black hole in our public finances.

Yes, benefit payments are part of that and they must be set at a fair level. But they must also be affordable and accompanied by powerful incentives to work.

In the longer term, the surest way to improve the living standards – and dignity – of the poor is through employment, not welfare dependency.