This is a slightly edited extract from an article originally published in The Telegraph on 4th November.
It’s a rule of British politics that the things that matter most invariably receive the least scrutiny. Just look at “Net Zero 2050”, passed with less debate than the decision to ban plastic straws.
When it comes to fiscal policy, a fundamental asymmetry exists. If I decide to set out a plan for spending taxpayer money – whether it’s keeping the triple lock, or raising the personal allowance – I am rightly expected to explain how I’m going to pay for it. The same goes for the Chancellor, John Healey.
Yet other policies, which cost far more, are pushed through without any funding detail at all. Take, for instance, Shabana Mahmood’s decision to back down to the baying mob of backbench Labour MPs, and carve out care workers from reforms of Indefinite Leave to Remain.
She’s refused point blank to come clean with the public about how much the decision will cost. Read through the government’s statement, or its response to the consultation document, and you’ll get lots of warm, fuzzy language about “contributions”. What you won’t find is cold, hard figures.
Which is exactly why Mahmood doesn’t want to come clean about the cost of her U-turn. Last year, the government’s own analysis suggested that giving ILR to care workers and their adult partners would cost the taxpayer £10 billion.
Unfortunately, I believe it’s also far too low. Earlier this year, Reform UK put together our own analysis of the care worker cohort. Put together lifetime entitlements to NHS care, Universal Credit, pensions, and the costs of educating their children, and our estimate is that carving out care workers will cost the UK £52 billion: almost £1,800 for each of the 29 million households in Britain.
It’s a decision that will haunt this country’s public finances for generations. In fact, it’s a generational mistake.
There is an alternative: give British care workers a pay rise. There are roughly one million care workers in Britain. If we take an extreme assumption and say they all work full time, 40 hours a week, it would cost about £2 billion a year to raise their pay by £1/hour. It would help to draw people off welfare, saving money, and it would help the care sector with recruitment. It would cost just 1/26th of the cost of Mahmood’s care-worker climbdown. And unlike Mahmood’s plan, it would actually be a lasting solution to hiring in a care sector badly starved of funds.
There is no justification for inflicting this fiscal brutality on the public. A Reform government would review the grants of citizenship to all those who benefited from Mahmood’s carve out, based on their genuine contributions to the public good.
We can debate spending on this or that policy, and the Chancellor’s budget “headroom”, but it all pales into insignificance compared to this one massive call. We have to reverse it. Anything else would be simply unfair to the taxpayer, and devastating to our public finances.
It’s a rule of British politics that the things that matter most invariably receive the least scrutiny. Just look at “Net Zero 2050”, passed with less debate than the decision to ban plastic straws.
When it comes to fiscal policy, a fundamental asymmetry exists. If I decide to set out a plan for spending taxpayer money – whether it’s keeping the triple lock, or raising the personal allowance – I am rightly expected to explain how I’m going to pay for it. The same goes for the Chancellor, John Healey.
Yet other policies, which cost far more, are pushed through without any funding detail at all. Take, for instance, Shabana Mahmood’s decision to back down to the baying mob of backbench Labour MPs, and carve out care workers from reforms of Indefinite Leave to Remain.
She’s refused point blank to come clean with the public about how much the decision will cost. Read through the government’s statement, or its response to the consultation document, and you’ll get lots of warm, fuzzy language about “contributions”. What you won’t find is cold, hard figures.
Which is exactly why Mahmood doesn’t want to come clean about the cost of her U-turn. Last year, the government’s own analysis suggested that giving ILR to care workers and their adult partners would cost the taxpayer £10 billion.
Unfortunately, I believe it’s also far too low. Earlier this year, Reform UK put together our own analysis of the care worker cohort. Put together lifetime entitlements to NHS care, Universal Credit, pensions, and the costs of educating their children, and our estimate is that carving out care workers will cost the UK £52 billion: almost £1,800 for each of the 29 million households in Britain.
It’s a decision that will haunt this country’s public finances for generations. In fact, it’s a generational mistake.
There is an alternative: give British care workers a pay rise. There are roughly one million care workers in Britain. If we take an extreme assumption and say they all work full time, 40 hours a week, it would cost about £2 billion a year to raise their pay by £1/hour. It would help to draw people off welfare, saving money, and it would help the care sector with recruitment. It would cost just 1/26th of the cost of Mahmood’s care-worker climbdown. And unlike Mahmood’s plan, it would actually be a lasting solution to hiring in a care sector badly starved of funds.
There is no justification for inflicting this fiscal brutality on the public. A Reform government would review the grants of citizenship to all those who benefited from Mahmood’s carve out, based on their genuine contributions to the public good.
We can debate spending on this or that policy, and the Chancellor’s budget “headroom”, but it all pales into insignificance compared to this one massive call. We have to reverse it. Anything else would be simply unfair to the taxpayer, and devastating to our public finances.
