Councils to vote on calling for halt to Universal Credit rollout. Better than nothing although not really.

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Attended the Stockport council cabinet meeting last night, where Stockport United Austerity asked if the council would vote to call on government to halt the Universal Credit rollout at its next (29 November) meeting.

The Cabinet said it would.

Which was something, I suppose. Leeds City Council has or is doing the same. If more (how about all) Labour led councils followed suit, that might be a look.

We need something a sight more radical from councils though. I doubt that a few strongly worded letters to government re: the problems with Universal Credit will cut it. Universal Credit rolls out in Stockport on 21 November.

As we speak, the council is considering removing the local welfare assistance scheme which was one of the last threads in the shredded social security safety net. Doesn’t bode well for support for people in extreme financial hardship when Universal Credit really hits.

Update: I didn’t word this brilliantly in the first post. It’s a vote to call on government to halt the rollout of Universal Credit.

49 thoughts on “Councils to vote on calling for halt to Universal Credit rollout. Better than nothing although not really.”

  1. Well if the Councils want to avoid problems with massive amounts of Rent arrears and Council Tax arrears, and homelessness, they should all boycott Universal Credit. If not it’s their own fault.

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  2. Stockport United Against Austerity will be demonstrating outside that Council meeting (from 5 p.m. at the Town Hall, Edward Street) both to call for support for the motion on UC and to demand the abandonment of the Labour Group’s intention to scrap its safety net for the very poorest people in the borough – the Stockport Local Assistance Scheme (former Social Fund).

    Please join us if you can.

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  3. Halt the rollout of UC? Councils should be demanding the whole scheme is scrapped, pronto.

    Councils of all political stripes are themselves implicated in central government’s Pogrom Against the Poor, as evidenced in this week’s report on the BBC’s Panorama.

    Half of the people taking part in the programme were being evicted from their homes by Fflint County Council. Sure, there was some individual responsibility there, as you don’t run up a rent debt of £4000 overnight, (That’s probably nearly a year’s rent) and as the person concerned pointed out, if the system actually worked, the council would have received their rent – as they would have done, ironically, if the council themselves were still responsible for Housing Benefit. Great, so a county council gets to evict two vulnerable older men, one struggling with mental ill health, and another obviously pretty much at the end of his tether. Fflint County Council is one where Labour are the largest party – pretty much says it all. Until all Labour councils show a resolve and commitment to solidarity with the poor in a similar manner to Poplar Council in 1921, I won’t consider that Labour councils are any better than the Tories, or that they are doing anything like enough:

    https://www.workersliberty.org/story/2009/07/30/poplar-council-guilty-and-proud-it

    Let’s not forget that governments rule by consent, whatever their nature. Local councils working together in solidarity with one another in removing their consent, literally refusing to collude with the government would go a long way to sabotaging Tory rule – and server as a beacon, and rallying point to the many thousands of us who currently feel deeply about all these issues, yet also feel very adrift in that there is no effective counter movement. I guess I’m suggesting that a sort of insurrectionary movement come into being.

    Will it happen? I doubt it, as people seem to have adopted a kind of fatalism where they meekly accept all the shit that the government, through the DWP, the councils and housing associations heaps on them. I know that’s not apathy, and I can empathise with people who don’t fight back, simply because they are so ground down by life, and totally blatted from having had to deal with the ludicrous levels of bureaucracy from councils, and the near total impossibility of dealing with, or even getting any kind of sense, out of the DWP.

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  4. I think that Stockport Council passing a resolution calling for the UC roll out to be halted is important precisely for the reason that, as this Council continues to own the whole of its Council housing stock, it will strengthen our hand in demanding no evictions.

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    • Councils make the decision whether to evict or not. That is the case UC or no UC. Of course, arrears will increase as a result of CENTRAL government’s policies, but when council tenants are evicted as a result of arrears due to the implementation of those central government policies, then LOCAL government is effectively penalising tenants for circumstances beyond their control. Arrears would of course remain, but if councils showed a bit of backbone and resolved to not evict in cases where arrears built up as a result of crap Tory government policies, and were publicly explicit in drawing attention to this, then I think it would send out a very clear message that it’s the government, and its policies that are at fault, and not the tenants who are really just ‘collateral damage’. I don’t know why you present this argument. To me it just looks like the usual dissembling that we’ve come to expect from Labour run councils when they want to attempt to explain away why they are implementing Tory policies that breach fundamental human rights.

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  5. I hope Esther McVey realises that as she has now resigned her job, she is now subject to 6 months without benefits under the sanction for ‘gross misconduct ‘ ?

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      • Are you sure it’s just for her Kate? I’m sure we could round up a few more candidates from amongst our elected representatives.

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        • These people come & go; IDS, Freud, Grayling, Gauke, and a few other twats whose names I’ve forgetten, now we’re rid of McVey but still got AlokSharma. There must be some special place where these pillocks come from, they just keep coming, like there’s a factory churning them out on a conveyor belt.

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    • Sanction for sure, and get her filling shelves in Poundstretcher for no wage, then Basic Skills assessment followed by CV writing classes, then a 20 mile bus journey to do a CSCS course, as well as keeping a daily record of jobsearching activity of course, and after that she can do 3 months of intensive supervised jobsearch in the Jobcentre.

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  6. Dundee Burroo
    What cann’a do ?
    Ye mak a man sae weary,
    With aye your rules an’
    Work Coach fools,
    Their faces dour an’ dreary

    How came it that a Scotsman
    Born under the Saltire blue,
    Should have to live by English rules,
    And suffer by them too ?

    What do I care a Dundee man,
    For rules in London made ?
    Why must I scrape to Sassenachs
    To gie some pennies of aid ?

    To sign their scripts and bow the knee,
    And speaking quiet and meek,
    Gie them all the details of my
    Jobsearch for the week

    Ach man ! It seems sae wrong to me
    No sooner oot the door,
    Than I see the Dundee Buroo,
    And there I am once more !

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      • As a Welsh speaker would you be able to understand any of it if it was in Scots Gaelic, or is there no similarity whatsoever?

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        • Very little similarity Trev. Both are ‘Celtic’ languages, but from distinctive branches, Goedelic Celtic, (Irish, Scots Gaelic and Mamx) and Brythonic, (Welsh, Breton and Cornish) . When you consider that Welsh and Breton are less close to one another than English and German, you begin to understand that Welsh and Scots Gaelic are quite far apart,

          Interestingly though, Brythonic, the forerunner of modeern Welsh. Breton and Cornish was spoken by people all over the island of Britain south of a line between Glasgow and Edinburgh. The Saxon invasion gradually changed the linguistic landscape, and made incursions into modern Scotland where English eolved into the modern Scots language – which is what I was referring to in my comment.

          You may find this particularly interesting Trev, some of the earliest epic poetry in Welsh is about a battle, not in Wales, but at Catterick, in modern North Yorkshire. I have read that until well into the 20th century that sheep in one part of Yorkshire were traditionally counted in Welsh – I’m not sure about that, but it could be true as there are landscape features in that area that have names tha are obviously ‘Welsh’ (which is itself derived from Anglo-Saxon wealsic, and means ‘foreigner’ and more specifically a Romanised foreigner. It would seem that the English learned cultural arrogance early on; invading someone else’s land, and then having the effrontery to call the natives ‘foreign’! I*grin*

          Welsh is my ‘secret weapon’ for dealing with the DWP, and I half suspect that the sole Welsh speaking member of staff in the local Jobcentre was employed because I exrercised my right to use Welsh in my dealings with the DWP. It could sometimes be quite fun, as when he was going to be away, alternative arrangements had to be made, which involved someone Welsh speaking having to come in specially so I could sign on in Welsh – but get this, he was a Welsh speaking Glaswegian! Though from his accent when speaking Welsh he learned it either in North Wales, or has a partner from North Wales. Workfare was a complete joke, as the provider companies had to find Welsh speakers willing to take me on, and they were all people who had been educated in Welsh, but who hadn’t used it after leaving school. When one left the company, was transferred to a dfferent office in a different town, but they were paying my train fare, so it was a day out for me!

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          • That’sall very interesting.There’s Pen YGhent in North Yorkshire, I always thought that sounds Welsh. In the Colne Valley in West Yorks. the locals spoke a derivative of Old Norse as late as the 12 th C. but by the 19 th C. they had a succession of Welsh preachers in little Baptist churches dotted around the hills, similar terrain to Wales, isolated hilltop communities sheep farming, so the Welsh Revival spread all the way to the West Riding!

          • I was thinking about Pen-y-Ghent, and yes that is Welsh, or more correctly, Cumbrian, (an extinct form of Brythonic Celtic) and the etymology, as Wikipedia has it is this:

            “In the Cumbric language, exactly as in today’s Welsh, Pen meant ‘top’ or ‘head’, and y is most likely the definite article (the), exactly as in Modern Welsh y. These elements are common in placenames throughout the island, and especially in Wales (compare Penyberth ‘end of the hedge/copse’, or Penyffordd ‘head of the road/way’, etc.). The element ghent is more obscure, however: it could be taken to be ‘edge’ or ‘border’.[11] The name Pen-y-ghent could therefore mean ‘Hill on the border’ (compare Kent).[12] Alternatively, ghent could mean ‘wind’ or ‘winds’ – from the closest Welsh transliteration, gwynt (‘wind’). Thus it might mean simply ‘Head of the Winds’. It is also possible that ghent may have been a tribal name and that the hill may have once been an important tribal centre. It is also acceptable to write the name as Pen y Ghent rather than Pen-y-ghent. “0

            I didn’t know about the Welsh Baptists in Yorkshire, fancy that, Wales sending missionaries to Darkest Yorkshire! Still, they got everywhere. Earlier in the year I bought a book written about a Welsh Baptist missionary to Madagascar, who is still celebrated in Madagascar today. He was responsible for producing the first dictionary in the Malagasy language, and also established an orthography for Latin script. I also discovered recently that another Welsh missionary performed a similar feat for the Cherokee:

            https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evan_Jones_(missionary)

            And I’ve also heard that quite a few went to China. I’ve never been sold on the whole idea of missionaries, but at least these Welsh ones went to places with no ill intent, and the evidence would suggest they actually did quite a bit of good.

          • The DNA research of Geneticist Prof. Bryan Sykes of Oxford links the Brythonic Celts to the Iberian Peninsula apparently. I first heard of his work a few years ago on a Radio 4 programme about him having researched his own DNA and the origins of the Sykes surname, which is of particular interest to me as I am related/descended from that family name and it is the most common name in my little bit of Yorkshire, an area first settled by Norwegian-Irish 2nd Era Vikings in the early 10th C. and hence the origins of the Sykes DNA and name too.

          • Yes, read about that too. However, intriguingly that was something that was presented as historical fact in histories of Wales that appeared as school readers in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Subsequent history of course rightly suppressed such ideas, especially as they tended to be expressed in overtly racialist language. It wasn’t until DNA testing came along that the link was proven, though some research by a former Blood Transfusion Service official in Wales discovered a link through blood groupings where the incidence of one particular blood grouping only had a matching incidence in North Africa, where of course many of the inhabitants of the Iberian peninsula originated from. I had a friend in university who was from Morocco, a Berber, (English was his third language, preceded by French and Arabic in addition to his native Berber) who was immensely proud of this connection between the Berbers, where the incidence of this blood grouping suggests a link to both populations. I clearly remember him coming up to me very excitedly one day soon after he had discovered this evidence. He was very pleased to hear that there were ancient tales about this link as part of the national myth in Wales.

      • Ye main be kiddin !
        For sure it is written in the tongue of yon sassenach queen.
        And sounds as clear as th’bags across the Glen.

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  7. I’d like to be able to say that this is ‘encouraging’ news, but I think I need a better word. But you’ll know what I mean. However I still find it mystifying, not to say a tad annoying that the debate still seems to be predicated upon whom it is ethical to sanction. It’s quite clear that sanctioning the sick and disabled isn’t OK, nor is sanctioning the mentally ill. So according to that logic, it would be OK to sanction single, healthy people. This is the reasoning of the insane, as if single, healthy people are sanctioned, they become sick and mentally ill. So why aren’t they arguing to get rid of ALL sanctioning? Perhaps logic isn’t their strong point?

    https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/nov/15/exclusive-new-study-links-universal-credit-to-increased-suicide-risk

    Is there a glimmer of hope that Universal Credit will come under even more flak? The above research by Gateshead council is to be welcomed, no matter how flawed it is in terms of its arguments. How supposedly intelligent people can still consider that there are flaws in the system rather than being an intended and integral part of the design is completely beyond me. For a start, there will have been people within the DWP who will have advised caution, (and been ignored) as well as those who would have looked at the proposals and forecast their likely effects. Also, we know that the DWP itself has commissioned research into the effects of UC, so they know how badly their policies can affect people. There is also the substantial body of anecdotal evidence from people who have been experiencing the horrors of UC since piloting the policy began in 2013. As many of us know, a UN rapporteur has been visiting the UK looking in to the effects of social security reform. His interim report is due out later today, and he is considering whether do describe the benefits system ‘cruel and inhuman’ I hope he does decide to describe it such, for that is what it is.

    https://www.theguardian.com/business/2018/nov/15/benefits-system-could-be-branded-cruel-and-inhuman-by-un-rapporteur

    It would also up the ante somewhat, and give substantial ammunition to the opposition to social security reform. However, as the main report is not out until June next year I suspect that Labour will heave a huge sigh of collective relief and go back to sitting on its hands until June, at the very earliest, when they’ll become incandescent with mock outrage – maybe.

    I do wish those with the power would join up all the dots. They were told from day one almost by many experts that Universal Credit was a bad idea, that it wouldn’t work. There are several years’ worth of data showing that it isn’t, and doesn’t work. There is an increasing death toll attributable to Universal Credit, and an even bigger body of evidence that it’s making people ill, both physically and mentally, as well as causing widespread destitution and homelessness. So why is the government pursuing policies that are damaging to its own citizens and society? Perhaps it’s because we don’t really have a functioning democracy, but maybe we could learn a thing or two from the Swiss and their democratic culture:

    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/nov/15/switzerland-laboratory-far-right-politics

    Okay, so it’s not about social security reform specifically, but it is very much about the nature of civilised society, and how to argue for it – and crucially there contains there a model to be emulated and adapted to conditions in the UK. There are similarities in that the group in Switzerland are dealing with apathy and popular prejudices, which the group counters by reminding people about civilised values. Food for thought.

    PS
    Kate, is there any way that the American English spell checker on this site can be changed to UK English? The squiggly red lines under words with esses instead of zeds is beginning to bug me. I don’t like zeds much… or is that zee?

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        • Bizarrely, it seems the site is set at UK English. Which is obviously not right as I just tried “neighbour” and got the error, but no error for “neighbor.” Maybe I should change it to US English and see what happens.

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          • Worth a try. Though sometimes these things are set at a different level in the software localisation. I’ve had problems with scripts not working on my OpenSimulator instances, the reason being I’d set my localisation to Welsh, which is set to European standards, so a decimal point is denoted by a comma, wheras the scripting language is set to US standards where a period is used to denote the same thing. Ain’t computers great?

    • You couldn’t make it up could you Trev? Never mind by this time next week at this rate we’ll have someone else! Swapping Tweedle Dee for Tweedle Dumber, is that the best they can do? Still, even their best are hardly front runners. Even a legless person would win an arse kicking contest with that lot.

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    • Big word for the Graun! There have been similar reports/criticisms in the past though, but the Government deny everything and carry on regardless. This is where the Opposition should come in, if it wasn’t for Brexit domination. If you don’t know where your next meal is coming from (call it Nexit?) Brexit is about as relevant as String Theory, or probably less so, at least you can try imagine life in a non-physical dimension where poverty & hunger don’t exist.

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      • Yes. indeed a big word for the Graun. But I’ve just noticed a typo there – the word should of course be ‘excoriating’, but I plead an addled sleep-deprived mind. I was in bed and typing on my tablet, which is usually a slow, error filled and curse laden activity!

        Yes, it all depends on whether Labour will pick up the ball and ruin with it. My prediction is probably the same as your suspicion: they won’t. What I did find very interesting in the report was the reference to how Scotland is setting up it’s own benefit system where there is no sanction regime and isn’t ‘digital by default’. I think that’s one to watch.

        In Wales, the politician angling to become First Minister has recently stated that he believes that Wales is better of with having things like social security ‘pooled’ within a UK framework, so he’s either heartless, or more likely, totally out of touch with reality – and anyway, once Scotland’s independent social security system is up and running the system we have will be just a Wales and England system.

        The fact that Plaid Cymru are arguing the case for a separate social security system for Wales may be partly responsible for his resistance to devolving social security, however.

        I take your point about how there have been many reports in the past that have been ignored. But there is a big difference this time. In the past such reports have usually been the result of purely academic nature, or as a result of a government assessment. In the case of the former, the government would argue that there ls ‘left-wing bias’ or some such other twaddle that is used to dismiss ‘experts’ and in the latter, would simply suppress a report that didn’t fit their narrative.

        The only way that this report can have any definite impact is if people like us take the initiative and go out and draw attention to it and appeal to something very unfashionable on the left: national pride. So often the left throw out the baby with the bathwater. It amazes me that in general the left in Britain remains (deliberately) ignorant about nationalism. presenting their primary school understanding of what they call ‘nationalism’ instead of dealing with it in a rational and sensible manner, like the Scandinavians have done. (And before anyone points out that they are not perfect societies, I know that, but you give me examples of more perfect human societies on this planet).

        Mr Alston in his report makes a deliberate appeal to the sense of national pride.I think this is a huge hint, and is key to any successful campaign, but no one on the mainstream left will touch it if it is couched in terms of national pride, possibly with an argument that on that path lies fascism, or some such utter bollocks. England needs a similar mass organisation to YesScotland and YesCymru, very broad based campaign groups. Both of those are primarily concerned with making a non-partisan case for the independence of both countries, but to a lesser degree they are also concerned about the very nature of society in those countries. Forget flag waving chauvinists, and think of people trying to think of ways of maintaining civilised societal values in a unified UK that is increasingly fractured.

        “England’s empire is crumbling. English people, liberate your selves!”
        Padi Phillips (*grins*)

        I don’t see that an appeal to patriotism is such a bad thing if it results in a better, more compassionate society. And besides, I’ve always argued that a healthy nationalism is by definition internationalist, as if you truly appreciate your own country, you also automatically appreciate why other people appreciate their own countries. So long as we beware those who come out with statements about making their countries great again, (through wars and invading other people’s lands and then taking over?) who seek to scapegoat or to blame others for the transgressions of others then I think a sense of critical patriotism is very healthy.

        I don;t know what I’m going to do next, but I am going to talk to a friend with a view to setting up a street stall to talk to people about this report, and get the word out. If it happens, I’ll keep you all posted.

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      • That was probably the most biting comment of all in Alston’s report. It was pointing out what we’ve known from day one, and that ‘welfare reform’ was a deliberate choice and ideological. Having someone like him carries weight; he is influential in a way that the millions of us aren’t. He has clearly acted as our spokesperson. That government ministers are now trying to dismiss his report, and the way in which they are doing that merely emphasises the findings of the report, and confirms another of Alston’s findings; that the Tories are in denial. .

        Strictly speaking, the Tories shouldn’t be able to wriggle out of this one, but I predict that once again Labour will let them off the hook. A plague on both their houses, and if there is social strife, i.e. riots, raging levels of crime etc in the not too distant future it will be as a result of polticians lack of action. The report says as much.

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  11. Lunchtime I was in my local newsagent, so thought I might buy a sandwich.
    I looked round the freezer cabinet, but it seemed they had all gone.
    All they had were scotch eggs, chicken slices and some sausage-rolls.
    But there was just one sandwich left in the corner, Tuna and sweetcorn.
    The packet tipped over on the front, as if someone had taken it, had second
    thoughts, and then put it back.
    It looked a bit stale, the white bread going curly at the edges.
    The tuna was almost colourless, as if it had faded in the sun.
    And I looked at it, and I sort of half-wanted it, because I hadn’t had any breakfast.
    But I wasn’t really very keen.
    Somehow it reminded me of Jeremy Corbyn, the last sandwich on the shelf.
    Better than nothing maybe….. but not very appetising.
    I took another look at the sandwich, then changed my mind and bought
    a large sausage-roll instead.

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    • If it was a choice between a sausage roll or a Tory though I’d vote for the sausage roll every time (a vegetarian one of course).

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      • Even a stale Greggs sausage roll would be preferable to a Tory, and coincidentally that’s what they hand out daily at my local foodbank too.

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  12. Pingback: Why can’t Labour decide where the hell it is at on Universal Credit? Hello? | Kate Belgrave

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