While the initial reaction to this Wednesday’s House of Lords votes on the Welfare Reform Bill and in ESA reforms in particular was one of relief at the scale of the Lib Dem rebellion (fewer than half the Lords Party voted with the whip), in the cold light of day the reaction is somewhat different.
In fact, underpinning the vote are a series of fault lines that have the potential, if mishandled, to make the fiasco over tuition fees look like a picnic.
Picture, if you will, this. It’s 2015. You’re a Lib Dem MP standing for election. You have an event – be it a hustings, or maybe a visit by the Leader? And outside that event, TV cameras and all, are protestors at the ESA cuts; the very people affected, with visible symptoms of the conditions they are suffering from. Puts your student protestors into the shade, doesn’t it? The most vulnerable people will garner far more sympathy, after all.
Of course, that is not a dilemma facing our unelected colleagues in the Lords (nor, I fear, is it likely to be any time soon). But when Liberal Democrat MPs vote on whether to overturn those Lords amendments, it can only be presumed that the same whip will apply. And on at least some of those votes, that is a whip to vote against your own party policy on an issue that is neither contained in the Coalition Agreement, nor has been the subject of meaningful public engagement, let alone consultation.
A recent article from Mike German, who I like and respect, appeared to set out a case that our negotiations with our coalition partners on the Welfare Reform Bill have already concluded – successfully. I think it can be safely said that the mood of the party is the opposite. After all, we did not vote overwhelmingly in September to oppose the ESA changes for cancer sufferers just so our elected representatives could do the opposite. If we did, then why not tear up any pretence of being a democratic party, abolish Conference and let Danny Alexander and a few unelected advisers write the manifesto on their own? (Actually, I can sense some of my readers salivating at that thought)
The Welfare Reform Bill is a sprawling, complex piece of legislation, and Lib Dems have already extracted significant and important concessions to mitigate and reduce the impact on vulnerable groups. I strongly support the overall objectives of Government policy, especially a simplified system that dramatically limits the scope for abuse. But it’s insanely bad politics to throw away the positives in that message for a cut to some of the most visibly vulnerable people that will remove their independence and leave them open to a system that is humiliating?
The amounts of money involved in Wednesday’s votes are very small, for a Government – fewer than half a billion pounds. They are, however, of dramatic significance to the recipients. My understanding is that the villains of this particular piece are the Treasury, who have set rigid cash limits on the DSS, allowing no room for fine-tuning the welfare reforms, while allowing a broadly equal amount (£2bn this Parliament) to be spent on enabling works for a replacement of the Trident system that may and should not happen. There is also depressingly little progress on scrapping Labour’s callous, inefficient and insensitive Work Capability Assessment regime – you know, the one that treats sufferers of chronic conditions like MS as if they were ‘benefit scroungers’?
So it’s time for Lib Dem MPs to step up to the plate. Not only should they refuse to vote down the Lords amendments; they should not be instructed to do so. And if they are, it will be a car crash of which they have had more than sufficient warning.
