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Cameron to give charities cash in drive to beat welfare ‘failure’
10.11.09
David Cameron attacked the “moral failure” of state-run welfare today as he announced radical plans to use taxpayers' cash to fund charities helping the poorest in society.
The Tory leader pledged to match Labour's commitment to eradicating child poverty but said that a Conservative government would use community groups rather than the state to mend “broken Britain”.
Mr Cameron revealed that he would award welfare franchises across the country to charities which proved they could help the jobless into work or give other assistance to the needy.
He also announced that he would appoint charity boss Debbie Scott, who runs the Tomorrow's People group, as a Tory peer.
He said he did not want the Government to withdraw completely from the welfare system, but was keen that it should take an active role in clearing obstacles for “social entrepreneurs” to tackle poverty.
In one of his most scathing attacks on “big government”, Mr Cameron said: “Human kindness, generosity and imagination are steadily being squeezed out by the work of the state.
“There is less expectation to take responsibility: to work, to stand by the mother of your child, to achieve, to engage with your local community, to keep your neighbourhood clean, to respect other people and their property, to use your own discretion and judgment.
“Why? Because today the state is ever-present: either doing it for you, or telling you how to do it, or making sure you're doing it their way.”
Mr Cameron said that a Tory government would identify proven social programmes, franchise them to social entrepreneurs “with a track record of success”, and fund them directly from existing state budgets to deliver public services.
But Work and Pensions Secretary Yvette Cooper was scathing about Mr Cameron's attack on state-run welfare, claiming that it a harked back to “Thatcherism”.
“The voluntary and community sector play a vital role in tackling poverty, often working with public services and with public funding, but they cannot do it alone,” she said.
“David Cameron is calling for the State to withdraw, leaving people to fend for themselves and charities and community groups to pick up the pieces. This is a return to Thatcherism, or even 19th-century liberalism.”
She added that the reason child poverty has fallen over the past 12 years was because the Labour Government introduced tax credits to make work pay.
In his speech, Mr Cameron said that “our alternative to big government is not no government — some reheated version of ideological laissez-faire”.
Reader views (3)
Surely, all parties agree that a rethink cannot be delayed any longer. The current regional variations in demands on the welfare system are ludicrous and in some communities welfare dependence has become a respected way of life. This is a parody of a care system and unfair both to tax payers and to those in genuine need.
The relationship between the giver and the receiver has been destroyed as a matter of deliberate welfare state policy. The objective of eliminating any feelings of patronage are understandable but Utopian, and there are very considerable unintended consequences. This separation of compassion and gratitude, and their replacement by rights and demands, dismantles the currency that naturally moderate human relationships and transactions. In the absence of any effective alternative principles of welfare management, this opens the flood gates.
Successive governments have bottled out when it came to the crunch of political expediency. At least Mr Cameron appears to be thinking hard about it!
- Geoff Trickey, Tunbridge Wells, Kent
Cameron cannot be serious. He becomes less conservative by the day.
Let's get this straight. Cameron will use taxpayers' money to farm out welfare work but:
a) the 'charity' won't be accountable to us;
b) as a peer, the head of the scheme, Debbie Scott won't have to bother with elections, so she won't be accountable to us, either.
What's the difference between government welfare and fake charities funded by the taxpayer?
1) charities are not subject to FOI;
2) budgets of charities (fake or otherwise) are off the books, so won't tarnish No. 11's budget;
3) probably some kickbacks.
I don't like the smell of this one.
- Faustiesblog, Reading
Mr Cameron, should face down HM Treasury by following the USA in Charity Giving Law. A rich person can right off a gift to a defined charity and so their Universities (above all in science) are better financed. That allows for new businesses to be created and taxed. HM Treasury have held Britain back with their failure to understand this truth. Could it be they (Treasury civil servants) fear taxpayers might then ask what the public sector is providing?
- Andrew, Notting Hill, London
