Benefits: Rights or Privileges?

 By Visionello

Yesterday on the Today programme, Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan-Smith proposed removing benefits from those convicted but not jailed for rioting. But amidst the criticism of this plan’s feasibility, an important issue has been neglected: whether benefits are rights or privileges, and whether they should be up for grabs in the criminal justice system.

Many problems with this policy have already been pointed out. Fiscally, the Financial Times quote Ian Mulheirn at the Social Market Foundation, who says that “It is really hard to identify people and remove their benefits in an automated system. Doing that is extremely expensive, and will cost more money than it saves.” There are practicality problems: will the whole household suffer, (as could happen with the eviction of those convicted of rioting)? Furthermore, removing benefits from people could increase deprivation, potentially leading to increased crime. Yet these are practical objections, and as such imply that if these could be resolved without massive short- or long-term expense, it would be alright to strip those convicted but not imprisoned of rioting of their benefits.

There is a moral issue here. The Financial Times quote an adviser to IDS saying “It depends on how you see benefits: are they a right or a privilege?” This is a central fault-line between the Conservative and Labour parties. Liberal Democrats, are torn on the issue depending on whether they have government posts or not; Nick Clegg supports the policy, whereas deputy leader Simon Hughes cautioned last week against taking away “public support for the needy”.

So are benefits a right or a privilege? The rights that we have connect to the kind of society we live in. If we don’t want to live in a society with high levels of homelessness, deprivation, and hunger, we must take benefits to be a right, not just a privilege to be taken away at the Government’s whim. The MPs found to have been less-than-honest about their expenses did not lose their rights to expenses in the future. Numerous MPs, including Harriet Harman, complained that retrospectively applied new expenses rules were “arbitrary”. The Liberal Democrat Under-Secretary for Transport Norman Baker complained of fundamental errors in the new expenses rules. Yet retrospective rule-making is exactly what the Government is doing now.

Of course crime should be punished, but we punish crime not by denying people human rights to basic needs, but through imprisonment, community service or a fine. In prison, people still get shelter and three meals a day. To take benefits away from people implies that we live in a society where our basic needs are up for grabs. Do we really want to live in a society where Government policy sacrifices people’s rights just to get even and provide short-term social catharsis? What’s next? Denying people access to education? To NHS care?

(If you disagree with cutting benefits for those convicted of rioting, you can sign this petition).