End of welfare helpline charges
A HELPLINE for Universal Credit claimants will be free and charges of up to 55p a minute for calls are to be scrapped, David Gauke announced yesterday, in a Government climbdown.
The Work and Pensions Secretary said the line would be switched to a freephone number over the next month and that all welfare helplines would be free of charge by the end of the year.
The announcement came as MPS backed a Labour demand to pause the roll-out of the Government’s flagship welfare reform, with Tories abstaining having been ordered not to take part in the symbolic and non-binding vote.
Just one Tory MP, Sarah Wollaston, defied the three-line-whip and voted with Labour. Two dozen Tory backbenchers were believed to be ready to rebel, after criticism that claimants were having to wait six weeks to receive their benefits when they move on to Universal Credit. Mr Gauke offered them an olive branch by bowing to demands to make the helpline free.
The EU Withdrawal Bill is appropriately named; it has once again been withdrawn from Parliamentary scrutiny pending further discussions with Conservative critics. The Prime Minister’s failure to win a majority at the election in June has left all government legislation vulnerable to even the most small-scale rebellion on the Tory benches. But no measure is more important than this if the country’s laws are to be ready for the exit from the EU in March 2019.
The decision to delay the next stages of the Bill, which received a Second Reading more than a month ago, reinforces the growing impression that the Government is losing control of the Brexit process. Labour’s spokesman, Sir Keir Starmer, said the postponement was indicative of an administration “paralysed” by the greatest challenge to face the country since the Second World War.
Such hyperbole is to be expected from the Opposition, but there is a palpable sense abroad of a catastrophe in the making. To a great extent this is a function of the refusal of the EU side in the negotiations to allow talks on the post-brexit relationship to proceed until the UK has met certain conditions, notably financial guarantees.
This arbitrary sequencing is making it hard for the Government to make long-term preparations for life outside the EU because future trading arrangements have not even been discussed. This stalemate is not of the Government’s making and could be broken this week if the political leaders attending the EU summit in Brussels recognise that the mandate being followed by the Commission’s negotiators is too inflexible.
If this state of affairs continues, however, then the prospect of Britain having to leave without an agreement must be contemplated, notwithstanding Amber Rudd’s assertion that such an outcome was “unthinkable”. It is not the Government’s policy, nor that of the EU; but it may happen by default, which is why proper preparations need to be made for such an eventuality.
The campaign organisation Leave Means Leave, which favours an immediate move to World Trade Organisation rules rather than a bespoke deal with the EU, today outlines how this can be achieved without causing the economic disruption that many in the City fear. The Government needs to start taking this option seriously.