The terrible cost of welfare dependency
Economic growth might be turning out marginally better than expected – if you believe the latest notoriously unreliable forecasts from the International Monetary Fund, that is – but the public finances are in an undeniably dreadful state. Public sector borrowing in April was £25.6billion, almost £12billion more than last year. It was the second highest April borrowing figure since monthly records began, according to the Office for National Statistics.
It blamed rising debt interest payments, the costs of the energy support package, but also increases in benefit payments. Indeed, the socialist refrain that the Government is motivated by cruelty towards people on welfare is the precise opposite of the truth. Benefits are going up in line with inflation, unlike wages in the private sector. It would not be surprising if it was the people who are actually going out to work for a living who felt hard done by, particularly given the scale of the tax burden.
Millions of working age people now languish on welfare. Companies complain of labour shortages, and the immigration figures this week are expected to show record net migration into the UK, but the Government shows little appetite for doing anything serious about getting British people back into full-time employment.
Is it because it thinks the problem is too difficult? It would, for example, involve confronting the rise in the numbers claiming they are unable to work because of poor mental health. Some have speculated that this is, in part, a consequence of the lockdowns, and the campaign of fear unleashed on the population by ministers. It would also involve completing the reforms to benefits policy that Iain Duncan Smith pioneered as welfare secretary under the Coalition.
In advance of Thursday’s migration release, the Government has announced that it is tightening the rules on international students, preventing most of them from bringing in family members. That is positive as far as it goes, largely closing a loophole that was allowing in thousands of people a year for little discernible benefit to Britain.
But there will be no sustainable solution to the broader issue of surging migration without big changes to domestic policy, particularly welfare. The status quo is not just expensive, but unkind. There is nothing good or moral about abandoning people to a life of inactivity and dependence on the state.