More handouts (but don’t dare call them benef its...)
SNP set to ban word over stigma fears as it gets welfare powers
THE Scottish Government is planning to ban the word ‘benefits’ for fear of stigmatising people who are out of work.
Senior ministers want to trigger a cultural change when sweeping new welfare powers are devolved to Holyrood.
Social Security Minister Jeane Freeman said the current language suggested taxpayers were ‘doing something nice’ for those receiving state handouts.
The Scottish Daily Mail also understands the Government is looking at ways of getting round the popular household cap, which stands at £26,000, but will be cut to £23,000.
Meanwhile, anyone aged 16 to 24 who has been out of work for more than six months will be given a grant of up to £250 and free bus travel.
The Government also plans to ask recipients of benefits – or ‘payments’ as they may become known – if they would prefer cash or goods.
However, the consultation failed to set what benefits the Government might introduce, with ministers preferring to talk about language and philosophy.
Miss Freeman and her boss Angela Constance, the Social Security Secretary, launched a 12-week consultation on the new system in Glasgow’s Govan yesterday.
Miss Freeman said: ‘There is value in looking at whether or not we continue to use the word “benefit”, because there is an implication in there that this is the rest of us doing something nice for somebody else, when actually what we have said consistently as a government is that social security is an investment we make collectively in ourselves. There are some things you can do to effect quite quick cultural change, and part of that is around language and thinking, so there is value in looking at whether or not we don’t simply call these payments, as opposed to benefits or some other word.’
The UK Government has sought to bring the country’s spiralling benefits bill under control, in recent years. However, the SNP has opposed cuts at Westminster.
Now the Scotland Act will see benefits such as disability benefit, carer’s allowance, sure start maternity grant, discretionary housing payment, and winter fuel payment devolved.
The Scottish Government will also be able to create its own benefits and top up any that remain reserved to Westminster.
Scotland’s annual welfare bill has already been described as ‘out of control’ after figures last year showed it had passed £22billion for the first time, boosted by a 6.9 per cent increase in housing benefit.
Miss Sturgeon is expected to introduce the UK’s most generous welfare system when legislation is introduced at Holyrood next May or June, with the first payments expected by 2021.
However, Miss Constance stressed the new system would ‘have to be affordable’ and declined to be drawn on whether or not jobless Scots could expect a pay rise. She also indicated that fitness to work assessments would not be carried out by private sector firms, but by the voluntary sector or NHS.
Miss Constance said: ‘We would have great reticence about folk motivated by making profit being involved in the social security system.’
However, campaigners warned that encouraging reliance on the state was a greater danger than any ‘stigma’. Eben Wilson, of Taxpayer Scotland, said: ‘Central welfare systems create thick rule books faster than they create comfort for those in need.
‘They insult those who are not as competent as others, suggesting they cannot cope. That’s real stigmatisation. They destroy self-reliance and induce dependency and lack of ambition.’
Mark Griffin, Scottish Labour’s social security spokesman, said: ‘Labour will support the Government where they show ambition in social security but we will not allow the SNP to simply pass on Tory cuts.’
Adam Tomkins, Scottish Tory social security spokesman, said: ‘What’s critical now is that we see delivery rather than rhetoric, and it seems the SNP is potentially setting off in the wrong direction.’
‘Dependency and lack of ambition’