Grayling denies cuts and scrounger agenda

Ian Macrae

If, in Employment Minister Chris Grayling you expect to find an unreconstructed Thatcherite Tory, mad for public spending cuts and red in tooth and claw, you’re likely to be disappointed. But when it comes to the zeal currently in vogue for the “Back to work” welfare and benefit reform agenda, he’s as much a conviction politician as any Norman Tebbit and his rhetoric, though softer is firmly on message.

“We only have 40 per cent of people with disabilities in this country in work compared with 70 per cent of the population as a whole and that’s something which I just don’t think is right.”

And he has a snappy sound bite to hand in disputing claims that Government moves to get  more people off Incapacity Benefit (IB) and into work are driven by a desire to reduce the welfare bill.

“It’s all about saving lives not saving money.

“We have 2.1 million people on IB: many of them have had little contact with the welfare state for a very long time. Nobody has ever talked to them, looked at their situation, understood whether they have the potential to do something else.

“There’ll be some who’ll be fit for work, there’ll be others who can return to work with the right support, there’ll be plenty who can’t possibly work who will carry on receiving unconditional support. But unless you go through this exercise, you can never get to the point where you can say, right, how can we help these individuals.”

Grayling also says that there is not and has never been any requirement in his area of responsibility to deliver on savings targets.

“There is no financial target attached to the IB migration. I don’t have a letter on my desk from the Treasury saying you are required to achieve x percentage of fit for work people. This is all about doing the right thing and trying to make the system as right as possible.”

Why then, does he think that disabled people feel so threatened and afraid?

“This is clearly a big change for people and they will see it as such. If you’ve been on benefit for ten years and someone comes along and says we can get you back to work, that’s a big change. But it’s not the wrong change.”

In addressing other concerns that we are too readily and conveniently portrayed as scroungers, fakes and cheats, he is vehement in denying any personal ownership of that agenda.

“Much though I might sometimes wish to, I can’t control the language used by tabloids. I never use that language.

“Of course, we will inevitably find that there are a small number of people on IB who probably shouldn’t really be there. But this is not about driving out scroungers.

“But I don’t believe that the welfare state is a place anybody should live unless there is no alternative for them.”