A Labour government would treat health and work as “two sides of the same coin” to help tackle the growing tide of economic inactivity, the shadow work and pensions secretary has said, as Jeremy Hunt prepares to make welfare a key dividing line in this week’s autumn statement. In her first interview in the role, Liz Kendall told the Guardian that while Labour wanted to make sure that “everyone who can work, does”, as it was the best route out of poverty, the government had “shirked” its responsibility to provide the support needed. While she argued that “benefits alone are not the answer” in helping people to escape poverty, she said the Tory approach to welfare had led to a “meaner, nastier and inadequate system” that had left millions of people struggling.
The government is expected to announce plans this week for people on incapacity support to look for work they can do from home, as well as stopping those who are unemployed but not actively looking for work from claiming free prescriptions and discounted bus travel. As well as imposing more conditions on welfare recipients, ministers have been considering whether to put up working-age benefits by the lower October inflation figure of 4.6%, potentially saving £2bn, rather than the usual September figure, which this year was 6.7%. “Nothing that the Tories do surprises me now. I think that both their moral and fiscal credibility are in the gutter,” she said about suggestions that tax cuts could be funded by squeezing welfare spending. “They always want to try to find a political wedge, and I think that’s because they’ve run out of road and run out of ideas, and that is all they have got.” She cited the 1942 Beveridge report, the blueprint for the formation of the NHS and social security system, a copy of which sat on the table in her Commons office, as the inspiration for her approach. “Conditionality was part of Beveridge’s original report and that will remain the case with Labour. But Beveridge also says that people need help to get work and to get on with work, and that the state had to use every power that it had to do that. I think it’s this government that has shirked its responsibilities.”
There are currently 2.6 million people out of work due to long-term illness, a record high, with the over-50s making up about half that number, and musculoskeletal problems the most common issue. For younger people, mental health problems are a big factor. Health-related economic inactivity costs the economy almost £16bn every year. Labour would bring down NHS waiting lists, provide early mental health support and reform the Department for Work and Pensions and jobcentres to focus on work, not merely administering benefits, she said. “What you really need is to make sure that health and work are seen as two sides of the same coin. We need big changes in the way the system works to deal with the root causes of the problem and have a real focus for everybody who can work, that they do. The government don’t have a sense of the scale of the changes we need. It’s a real issue for the economy but it’s also hideous for people stuck in what is an ever meaner, nastier and inadequate system.” Kendall said she had no regrets about being the only Labour leadership candidate in 2015 to back the acting leader Harriet Harman’s decision not to oppose welfare cuts made by the Conservatives. “I’ve always believed that if you want to show you’re going to do something, you’ve got to show how you’d pay for it. We have to convince people to trust us.” Her approach to other controversial Tory welfare policies including the two-child benefits cap, which Keir Starmer has said he would keep, and the bedroom tax, is similar. “None of these were Labour policies. We voted against them. We oppose them. But we also know that we have to be clear that we can actually deliver change, how we are going to pay for it. Unfortunately people judge Labour differently.” Kendall vowed to introduce a “bold national child poverty strategy” if the party won power, working across several government departments including health and education to help lift a million children out of destitution. “I want to make sure across our shadow cabinet [that they] understand their contribution to this,” she said. While it had not been decided which minister would lead the strategy, it would be her “great honour”. Kendall confirmed Labour had no plan to change the triple lock – which guarantees the state pension goes up by whichever is highest of average earnings, inflation, or 2.5% – but acknowledged the growing costs of an elderly population. She suggested Labour could look again at the four-day working week, currently the subject of a major trial. “I’ve always been a huge supporter of flexible working. I’m always keen to look at what the evidence is, but that’s not something we’ve committed to.” The Leicester West MP, whose constituency has a large south Asian population, denied Labour could have a problem with those voters after the Gaza vote in parliament. “I had many emails from constituents desperately worried about what is happening, the horror and slaughter there … I really understand why people wanted that vote. But I don’t believe that demands for a ceasefire on one side solves the problem.”