The Economist - USA (2019-07-13)

54 Britain The EconomistJuly 13th 2019

2 power in 2010 on a promise to balance the

fiscal books, have long been tough on bene-

fits. In a conference speech in 1992 Peter

Lilley, then the welfare secretary, adapted

the libretto of a Gilbert and Sullivan musi-

cal: “I’ve got a little list / Of benefit offend-

ers who I’ll soon be rooting out / And who

never would be missed.” Yet even by Con-

servative standards, cuts to working-age

welfare under Mr Osborne were severe. In

the 2010-15 parliament about £30bn (equiv-

alent to over 1% of gdp) was stripped away;

single parents in work lost benefits worth

6% of their after-tax income. Reforms an-

nounced shortly after the general election

in 2015 fell even harder on the poor.

The highly visible effects of these poli-

cies, from a proliferation of food banks to a

rise in rough sleeping, have convinced

many people that Mr Osborne went too far.

As on many subjects, public opinion on

welfare tends to be “thermostatic”, says

Ben Baumberg Geiger of the University of

Kent. Once policies become harsher or

softer than the level preferred by the pub-

lic, voters send a signal and the govern-

ment adjusts the policy “temperature” ac-

cordingly. Philip Hammond, who replaced

Mr Osborne in 2016, has slightly increased

the working-age welfare budget.

Changes in other policy areas may help

to explain why the public has gone softer

on welfare. The growing concern in the

2000s with benefit fraud and abuse coin-

cided with a big rise in immigration, espe-

cially after 2004, when residents of eight

eastern European countries got the right to

work in Britain. Voters feared the prospect

of migrants coming to live off the taxpayer

(many did indeed claim in-work benefits,

though very few lived off the dole). A sense

that Brexit will lead to lower immigration

may have convinced people that there is no

longer such a risk involved in having a gen-

erous welfare policy. Once the government

is seen to be acting on a topic, public opin-

ion moves on, says Andrew Cooper, a poll-

ster at Populus.

The change in mood is matched in the

political debate. Not long ago, opposition

parties boasted that they would be tougher

on welfare than the incumbent. As recently

as 2015 Labour—then under the caretaker

leadership of Harriet Harman, a veteran of

Mr Blair’s administrations—whipped its

mps to abstain on a vote on Mr Osborne’s

benefit cuts, rather than vote against them.

Ed Miliband, who preceded her as leader,

promised to crack down on migrants re-

ceiving benefits.

A bunch of left-wing backbenchers, in-

cluding Jeremy Corbyn and John McDon-

nell, ignored Ms Harman’s orders, with Mr

McDonnell pledging to “swim through vo-

mit” to oppose the cuts. Mr Corbyn has

since become Labour’s leader, and the party

has moved in a different direction. It has

mooted a universal basic income and hint-

edthatitwouldscrapuniversalcredit.La-

bour’semollientapproachmeansthatthe

Toriesnolongerneedtobemachoabout

welfare. “Politicians now in Parliament

can’tgetupandspeakthewaytheydida

fewyearsago,”saysMrMcDonnell,now

theshadowchancellor.“Inthosedays,we

werestillat‘scrounger’andalltherest.”

Oneperson,atleast,hasnotchanged

hismindonbenefits.WhenaskedlastOc-

toberwhetherheregrettedhisactionsin

government,MrOsborneadmittedtopoli-

cyfailuresregardingtheeu, immigration

andthebankingindustry.Buthemounted

a staunchdefenceofhiswelfarecuts.“If

youaregoingtohavetodealwiththefact

thecountry was spending toomuch, it

wouldbeabitoddtoleaveoutthevery

largechunkthegovernmentwasspending

onwelfare,”said MrOsborne. Voters,it

seems,nowdisagree. 7

E

arlier this year minicab drivers

turned up to protest outside the offices

of Transport for London (tfl). “Sadiq Khan,

shame on you!” they chanted. “Not the

drivers, not the poor, tax the operators

more!” The cause of their ire? The mayor’s

decision that minicab drivers, including

those who use Uber, should join the gen-

eral public in paying £11.50 ($14.30) a day to

drive in the centre of the capital. “We hoped

the public-pressure route would work,” ex-

plains Jason Moyer-Lee of the iwgbunion,

which organised the protest. But Mr Khan

stood firm—so the union has decided to try

the legal route.

On July 10th the High Court began to

hear its case that the introduction of the

charge for minicab drivers is racially dis-

criminatory and breaks the European Con-

vention on Human Rights. As a public

body, tflmust obey the Equality Act by

avoiding indirect discrimination, which

happens when a seemingly neutral rule has

a disproportionate impact on a protected

group. An example could be a rule making

all employees work full-time, which would

disproportionately affect women, who are

more likely than men to be carers.

Since the rules changed in April, the

congestion-charge exemption has been

available only to black cabs and to the 0.6%

of private-hire vehicles that are accessible

to wheelchairs. This is where the iwgbsays

the indirect discrimination comes in. Al-

though Uber drivers and cabbies perform

similar roles, shuttling Londoners about

the city, they are very different people. Ac-

cording to a recent survey, only 8% of mini-

cab drivers are white-British, compared

with 80% of black-cab drivers.

Black-cab drivers have little sympathy

for their rivals. The number of private-hire

drivers in the city has almost doubled since

Uber arrived in 2012. “There’s too many of

them on the road. Something needs to be

done,” complains Miles, as he chomps on a

sandwich outside a small green hut,

known as a cabmen’s shelter, on the Em-

bankment. The congestion charge was ex-

tended to cover minicabs to do just that.

Research carried out on behalf of tflpre-

dicts that it will cut private-hire traffic by

6%, but overall traffic by just 1%.

Indirect discrimination is permissible

if it is a “proportionate means” to achieve a

“legitimate aim”. It is, for example, fair to

make trainee firefighters pass a fitness test

before they jump into burning buildings,

even though such a test discriminates

against old people. But the iwgbargues

that there are other ways to achieve the le-

gitimate aim of reducing traffic—such as

raising the congestion charge for all driv-

ers—and that a fall in the supply of mini-

cabs may harm people with disabilities

who do not need a wheelchair.

tflresponds that the most price-sensi-

tive traffic has already been priced out of

the city, so a rise in the congestion charge

for all would make little difference. Taxi

drivers will hope it is a winning argument.

In exchange for learning the Knowledge, a

gruelling feat requiring them to remember

25,000 roads and 100,000 landmarks, they

earn perks such as the right to pick people

up off the street (whereas minicabs must

be booked) and to drive in bus lanes. If

minicab drivers have their way, the incen-

tive to spend all those hours memorising

road names will be a little less strong. 7

Is the congestion charge racially

discriminatory?

London taxis

The Courts of

Justice, please

Black cab, white driver