‘Scrap maternity pay’ – how Tories see the future of ‘welfare’ reform

[Image: The Guardian]

[Image: The Guardian]

Yesterday (February 11) we had a chance to see what the Tories – or at least some of them – want to do to state benefits.

Charlie Elphicke, Tory MP for Dover, launched a debate in the Westminster Hall in which he called for the axing of maternity pay – and other in-work benefits – to make way for a new insurance system into which employers and the self-employed would pay, and from which the costs of maternity leave and other benefits would be met. He suggested that participating employers would see a corresponding cut in their National Insurance contributions.

He said he wanted this system to pay out at minimum wage levels, rather than at the current £137 per week maternity rate. The state would back the scheme, but it would be entirely funded by businesses.

The taxpayer would not fund any of this scheme – at least, not the way the visionary Charlie put it during the debate. It would be “paid for by the workplaces of the nation”.

This is how (some) Tories want the system to be: Insurance schemes-a-go-go, with people and businesses standing or falling on their ability to meet the requirements of the system.

Obviously he has not considered the drawbacks of such a scheme. One is very simple: If employers are paying everything towards in-work benefits, why not simply pay the Living Wage, whether a person is working, on maternity, or whatever? The cost would be the same or lower – because there would be no government administrative burden.

Liberal Democrat Work and Pensions minister Steve Webb put some more of them into words.

“As the system currently works… 93 per cent of the cost of statutory maternity pay is refunded to employers. In fact, more than 100 per cent is refunded to small firms,” he said.

“If an employer is reluctant to take on a woman who might have a child, therefore, the pure finances should not make a huge difference.

“I am not therefore sure that having a collectivised… system of insurance is any different substantively for the employer. Either way, employers are getting reimbursed — the costs are being met and are not in essence falling on the employer.”

In other words, there would be no benefit to employers.

He continued: “Whenever we set up a new scheme, we have new infrastructure, bureaucracy and sets of rules. If we had the levy—the at-work scheme that he described — we would have to define the new tax base, have a new levy collection mechanism, work out who was in and who was out, have appeals and all that kind of stuff. There is always a dead weight to such things. Simply setting up new infrastructure costs money. I would have to be convinced that we were getting something back for it.”

In other words, the scheme proposed by the intellectual Mr Elphicke would be more expensive than the current system.

“He then says that he wants the rate not to be some £130 a week, but to be £200 and something a week,” said Mr Webb.

“I was not clear where that extra money would come from. If we pay women on maternity leave double, someone must pay for it. If he does not want that to be an extra burden on firms, paying for it will simply be a tax increase.”

In other words, the scheme might be doubly more expensive.

In addition, he said the proposal created issues around whether it distorted the choice between becoming an employed earner or a self-employed person.

And he pointed out that Mr Elphicke’s proposal was based on a belief that women taking maternity leave would not return to their previous employment – but this is no longer true. Mr Elphicke’s proposal is based on an outdated understanding of the market.

Mr Webb said: “The norm now for an employer who takes on a woman who goes on maternity leave is that — four times out of five — he will come back to the job for which she was trained, in which she is experienced and to which she can contribute.

“We now find that three quarters of women return to work within 12 to 18 months of having their baby… We need to educate employers about the fact that, if they do not employ women of childbearing age, they are depriving themselves of talented people who contribute to the work force. Not employing such women is clearly a bad thing, not only from a social point of view, but from an economic point of view.”

There you have it. Mr Elphicke’s proposal was defeated by a member of his own Coalition government; it was archaic, it was expensive, and it offered no profit for the people who were to pay for it.

That won’t stop him pushing plans like this. You will have noticed that a keystone of his scheme was that businesses would pay for in-work benefits – not the state. Charlie Elphicke is a Tory, and Tories cut taxes for very rich people like themselves. He’ll go on pushing for it in one form or another, for as long as he remains an MP.

Even if it is expensive, harmful nonsense.

Follow me on Twitter: @MidWalesMike

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13 Comments

  1. Darren February 12, 2014 at 10:40 am - Reply

    It would be interesting to learn how many – if any – shares Mr Elphicke holds in Unum or any of its holding companies, would it not, seeing as how it was Unum who started the whole welfare reform ball rolling?

  2. […] Yesterday (February 11) we had a chance to see what the Tories – or at least some of them – want to do to state benefits. Charlie Elphicke, Tory MP for Dover, launched a debate in the Westminster H…  […]

  3. beastrabban February 12, 2014 at 11:01 am - Reply

    Reblogged this on Beastrabban’s Weblog and commented:
    MIke here points out how expensive, inefficient and bureaucratic the current Tory plans to replace state maternity pay with a payment instead from something like the workplace pension scheme are. This will, of course, not matter at all to the Tories, as they have as a fundamental article of faith a hatred to any kind of state interference, no matter how efficient and beneficial it actually is. I’ve blogged before now that one of the reasons the Tories wish to dismantle the welfare state is a desire to see the benefits system handed over so that the private sector can profit from it. This is almost certainly the reason Charlie Elphicke, the Dover MP, is backing this.
    Of course, the other reason is that the Tories and the Republicans in America hate working mothers, and you can find posts on some Libertarian sites attacking maternity leave and the employment of women for adding extra expense to businesses. Hence the desire of the Daily Mail, and so on to see women back at home, rather than at work.

  4. Barry Davies February 12, 2014 at 11:09 am - Reply

    His plan would lead to one thing, an increasingly growing amount of young out of work women, who would be unlikely to be able to get a job after their child bearing days were over as they had not worked. Financially it would be suicide to employ them under his ideas.

  5. NMac February 12, 2014 at 2:27 pm - Reply

    Perhaps this thoroughly unpleasant and Nasty Tory would also support the scrapping of most Parliamentary expenses, but I doubt that very much.

  6. Paul Smyth February 12, 2014 at 3:51 pm - Reply

    Reblogged this on The Greater Fool.

  7. thelovelywibblywobblyoldlady February 12, 2014 at 4:29 pm - Reply

    Reblogged this on glynismillward189 and commented:
    Decided who you’re voting for in the next election? Maybe this will help…

  8. jaypot2012 February 12, 2014 at 5:53 pm - Reply

    Again, this pathetic bunch of losers trying to privatise the Social Security! I hope that this too falls flat on it’s face!

  9. Tony Franks February 12, 2014 at 6:39 pm - Reply

    FFS Is there no end to the BS these Tory morons will come out with. “visionary” my arse!

    • Mike Sivier February 12, 2014 at 8:33 pm - Reply

      Yes, I was not entirely serious when I used that description!

  10. Editor February 13, 2014 at 7:34 am - Reply

    Reblogged this on kickingthecat.

  11. klingklangman February 13, 2014 at 12:44 pm - Reply

    Reblogged this on Liam's Random Ramblings and commented:
    Tories are stuck in the 1930’s! Or they want to take us back there…

  12. Jezz February 13, 2014 at 2:31 pm - Reply

    The agenda for this year is that the condems KNOW they don’t have a snowflake’s chance in hell of getting elected, so, like true Bullingdon Boys, they are vandalising every decent and workable thing they can lay hands on.

    Those not headed for stratospheric banking jobs (‘UK PM’ or ‘chancellor’ looks good on a CV) will be giving interviews to the Daily Mail, trying to blame Labour for all the mess.

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