Is it Government ignorance, weakness or ideological agreement that drives it to let the right set the terms of debate, asks Andrew Fisher.

The UK social security system is one of the least generous in Europe. It is neither generous nor ballooning – despite the hyperbole of right-wing media and politicians.

This is the disconnect of a political media class that never pauses to consider the impact that immiserating disabled people or unemployed workers has on their mental health, their children’s life chances or even on society as a whole.

I’ve been passionate about social security ever since I realised as a primary school kid in the late 1980s and early 1990s that politicians demonised those on benefits (at the time single parent families, like my own, were in the firing line).

Much of the inane political commentariat who view politics as little more than a daily soap opera are now portraying this Labour government delivering ‘welfare reform’ – the oft-used euphemism for cuts – as some sort of virility test for the faltering government.

When Labour decided to finally scrap the two-child limit, much of the Westminster bubble wrote up the story not as the liberation of half a million children from poverty, but as Keir Starmer capitulating to his backbenchers.

On Murdoch’s Times Radio, veteran right-winger Andrew Neil described Labour’s U-turn “not just back down but run up the white flag of surrender” and the reputation of both Starmer and Reeves as “in the dirt”.

What showcases political impotence most is the lack of political strength and leadership to stand up to this nonsense. As on migration, the Labour government has allowed the right – and sometimes the far right – to set the terms of debate. It is hard to tell whether it is ignorance, weakness or ideological agreement that drives this, but all three need to be countered.

Despite the regular assertion that ‘welfare spending is out of control’ – it is not at all.

For the last 15 years at least, UK spending on social security has been consistently between 10% to 12% of GDP (depending on economic circumstances). In 2024, UK social security spending was 10.8%.

Comparable countries, such as France, Germany and Italy, spend far more on social security for their citizens than the UK.

That is hardly surprising; compared to most other countries in Europe, the rate of key UK benefits – whether its unemployment benefit or the basic state pension – is incredibly low. Unemployed workers in countries such as Ireland, France and Germany are entitled to more than double what UK workers get if they become unemployed.

We don’t even have to look abroad to see the unfairness and inadequacy of our own social security system. Unemployment benefit in the UK is now worth just 14% of average weekly earnings. When I was born in 1979, it was about 24%.

If unemployment benefit was the same value relative to wages that it was in 1979 it would today be worth nearly £160 per week, instead of the actual rate of £92.05.

If social security is a safety net, it’s an increasingly threadbare one – and those falling through the gaps are the record 172,000 homeless children, the 14 million people living in poverty, and the rising numbers of people queuing at food banks.

We need social security that actually provides social security.

Andrew Fisher was Labour’s Director of Policy from 2015 to 2019. He is the author of The Failed Experiment: And How to Build an Economy that Works (Comerford & Miller, 2014) and writes a regular column for the i newspaper.

Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Andrew_fisher_2020_1.jpg. Source: How Starmer Became Labour Leader (12 Days of Tysky). Author: Novara Media,  licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license.