David Pinto-Duschinsky

A strong social security system is not just the cornerstone of a welfare state, but a hallmark of a decent society. However, it is exactly because the system is so essential that we must safeguard its future. It is our duty not just to help the most vulnerable today, but to ensure that the system is sustainable so that it can offer support tomorrow. That is the central challenge when we consider PIP. The number receiving it has more than doubled in the five years since the pandemic, and more than 1,000 new people join it every single day. Although health conditions have become more widespread in the years following covid, due mainly to the Conservatives’ terrible mismanagement of and under-investment in the NHS, the number of people on health-related benefits such as PIP has, on some metrics, increased at twice the rate that underlying health conditions have. Those of us who believe in the welfare state cannot simply ignore this issue, and neither can we posit speculative new revenue sources to wish the problem away. Some of my hon. Friends have mentioned a wealth tax as a possible solution. I say to them gently: if only it were that easy. Dr Allin-Khan, “no country in the world has ever successfully had a wealth tax”. Those are not my words, but those of Paul Johnson, head of the Institute for Fiscal Studies. If we are to protect the system, we must not seek to freeze it in aspic or ignore the problems it faces. Instead, we must confront the problems head on and seek reforms that will allow the institutions of the welfare state and the values they encode to endure.