Here’s one dog that didn’t bark at Labour’s conference, amid the clapping and the sparkling. Only a few months ago, Keir Starmer’s refusal to pledge to reverse the two-child benefit cap – which tips hundreds of thousands of children into extreme poverty – was greeted with howls of pain and indignation. The shadow cabinet challenged him over it, and Meg Hillier, the chair of the public accounts committee, was among the many appalled Labour voices who objected.
Why did he do it? It wasn’t planned, but a badly handled answer to an interview question that should have had a boilerplate reply: he would not be bounced into unfunded spending commitments that had not yet been agreed. Had he said he’d abolish it, he’d be chased on every other benefit. It was a needless mistake that should have been side-stepped.
In Labour ranks, it hurt – viscerally. When Rachel Reeves, the shadow chancellor, said in her speech that “the fight against poverty pay has been at the heart of our movement from the beginning”, she was right. Rooting out injustice is why they’re all there.
At Labour conference, I sought out fringe meetings of charities and heavyweight thinktanks bringing their research and solutions on poverty and inequality: they were packed. There were no protests, just vehement hope that Labour would do better for the most vulnerable, and had other plans to compensate. The Child Poverty Action Group’s Alison Garnham reeled off the miserable facts: more than 50 benefit cuts and 600,000 more poor children since 2010. From the 70s to the 2010s, the real value of benefits as a percentage of earnings halved. Unemployment benefit is the OECD’s lowest, if calculated as a share of previous in-work income. The Trussell Trust’s Emma Revie spoke indignantly of growing demand at its food banks. She says that 70% of users are on universal credit, meaning the benefit cannot cover the basic essentials of survival – it is no safety net.
What can we glean of what Labour will actually do? Andy Harrop, general secretary of the Fabian Society, said he’d seen how the shock of Starmer’s two-child benefit statement had galvanised the party’s national policy forum into voting for a stronger poverty policy: it committed Labour to an “ambitious strategy to tackle child poverty, as a focus of a cross-government effort to break the class ceiling”. This would involve “turn[ing] the tide on parental income dictating children’s future earnings, boosting social mobility … [and] expanding the remit of the Low Pay Commission to take account of the cost of living” – which means the minimum wage would rise with inflation. Universal credit would face “fundamental reform” to “tackle child poverty” and “end punitive sanctions”.
I shared a panel with Liz Kendall, the new shadow work and pensions secretary. Work doesn’t pay, she said, as she outlined in her conference speech: “Only two things ever stop you living on poverty pay: the law and a trade union membership card in your pocket.” That’s why the new deal for working rights that would end zero-hours contracts and fire and rehire, and force all employers to let unions in to recruit, is central to Labour’s anti-poverty plan. Making work pay was a strong persuader on Rutherglen doorsteps. “The last Labour government lifted 2 million children and pensioners out of poverty: our ambition is undiminished,” Kendall said. “We will reform universal credit – to protect people when they need it and to genuinely make work pay.” This is tougher stuff than Blair and Brown ventured ahead of their election.
Nor might you have expected Liam Byrne, in the days of New Labour, to rail against obscene wealth, on which he has a report out shortly: superyacht, private jet and Rolls-Royce sales are soaring since Covid, as assets inflated while earnings fell. Britain’s 1%, he said, saw their wealth grow by 31 times more than the rest between 2010 and 2021.
Alison McGovern, also a DWP shadow minister, spoke angrily of job centres pushing people into any old job, however insecure and futureless: under her, they would stop labelling working-class people as fit only for the worst jobs. Skills training and foundation courses would be opened up. She quoted the first clause of the Equality Act, pushed through in 2010 by Harriet Harman just before Labour’s lost election of that year, which demands government departments confront classism as well as every other form of discrimination.
Torsten Bell of the Resolution Foundation warned that the Tories were laying traps and scorching the earth for Labour. Most councils were heading for Birmingham-style bankruptcy, and schools are falling into deep deficits alongside NHS trusts. Jeremy Hunt, the chancellor, has sealed in zero spending increases until 2027, a huge cut because it doesn’t allow for inflation. Expect further landmines laid in the no man’s land beyond the next election.
So it was depressing to hear James Murray, the shadow financial secretary to the Treasury, repeating the official message (whatever he actually thinks) at an event on public spending: “We’d like to lower taxes.” But why? Starmer told GB News he wants “the overall tax burden to come down, especially on working people”. Tax is not a burden, but the price we pay for civilisation – and Labour should start telling some home truths about the need to pay for repairing decayed public services; the UK still pays less than many equivalent west European countries.
“Humankind cannot bear very much reality,” wrote TS Eliot in Burnt Norton. Especially just before an election, he might have added. That leaves the voter to decipher as best they can what that reality might be under a new government. After spending much time listening to would-be ministers’ speeches, and conversations on fringe platforms, I remain highly optimistic that their intent is radical reform, pushing against that “class ceiling” for greater equality and embracing children from their earliest years.
Past performance remains the best guide: every labour government increases benefits, cuts poverty, sends many more people into better and longer education, and revives public services. Labour’s frontbench, straining against another wasted year to wait, looks eager to make that happen.
Polly Toynbee is a Guardian columnist
