Why childish insistence on universal benefits like free prescriptions shows we've fallen into Socrates' trap

In 2009, during the MPs’ expenses scandal, many of our elected representatives appeared to be outraged by the idea that they deserved any kind of criticism at all for their lavish use of taxpayers’ money.

I know this because at the time, I was working for the Sunday Telegraph, which, along with the daily paper, broke the story, and on Saturday mornings made quite a few phonecalls to MPs to explain we planned to run an article about their expenses claims and ask for their response. If I expected humility, what I mostly got was indignation.

One MP who I previously admired told me I was interrupting a family event (possibly a birthday, I can’t remember) and pointedly invited me to feel ashamed of myself. His claim was not the worst – he’d not built a duck house or been reimbursed for the purchase of a poppy – but it was still disappointing.

Freebiegate

A line of defence used by some at the time was that everyone did it; MPs had just gone along with accepted practice. This cropped up again recently as Keir Starmer and co initially sought to defend their acceptance of expensive gifts. Few parents would accept this excuse from a child caught misbehaving and, in both the MPs’ expenses scandal and ‘Freebiegate’, voters did not either.

However, a large section of those self-same voters also clearly have a fondness for what might be described – uncharitably – as ‘freebies’. And here I am talking about universal benefits, which by definition involve giving things for free to people who can afford them.

Providing extra money to pensioners to help them stay warm in winter is clearly a good thing to do, particularly given the recent energy crisis. Elderly people spend more time at home than those who go out to work and may well have health conditions that make cold weather not just unpleasant but potentially life-threatening.

Labour’s mistake over means-testing

However, there are many good ways to spend public money, and governments need to prioritise the best ones. What use is £300 towards winter fuel costs to a wealthy pensioner who doesn’t need the money, if they then have a heart attack and have to wait hours for an ambulance to arrive? Would they not prefer that money to go towards fixing the NHS instead?

Giving money to pensioners who don’t need it means that cash doesn’t go somewhere else. When the NHS is in such a mess, it strikes me as crazy to hand out winter fuel payments to wealthy pensioners. That said, Labour's chosen way of means-testing seems a rather blunt tool. Clearly there will be pensioners who just miss out and face real hardship as a result. Labour could have introduced a discretionary fund to ensure those people were still able to claim the money – pensioners being pensioners, few would do so but the option would be there.

Even some supposedly means-tested benefits seem ridiculously generous. For example, child benefit can be paid to couples with a combined income of up to £120,000, and families with a single earner on up to £80,000. The previous individual limit of £60,000 was increased just this year by the then Chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, in the Spring Budget. Cynics may suggest this puts occasional Conservative speeches about “benefit scroungers” in a rather different context.

Scotland fond of universal benefits

In my book, benefits should go to the poorest, people who otherwise would not be able to get by. As a nation, we should be striving to reach a situation in which no one needs any benefits. We probably will never get there, but that should still be the aim. Hunt’s decision further entrenched benefit payments as part of ordinary life for the vast majority of parents in Scotland.

However, it would take some political courage to reverse this policy. Having been burned by the row over means-testing winter fuel payments, Labour will almost certainly leave well alone.

Scotland has a particular fondness for universal benefits such as free university tuition and free prescriptions. This, I think, is slightly different as these are benefits in kind. One could argue that free prescriptions are central to the ethos of the NHS as a service that is “free at the point of use” – which I wholeheartedly support.

However, introducing the charges used south of the Border would only mean patients had to pay for about five per cent of prescriptions and it would save millions that could be better spent elsewhere. Free medicine is great, but obviously not if it comes at the cost of a collapsing NHS.

Socrates was forced to kill himself by drinking hemlock in 399BC after being found guilty of 'impiety' and 'corrupting the young' (Picture: Hulton Archive) | Getty Images

Socrates not a fan of democracy

The Accounts Commission recently warned that “significant resistance” from the public to spending cuts by local authorities was putting "the sustainability of vital public services at risk". This encapsulates what I am trying to say. Insisting on having it all, when we cannot afford it, will lead to ruin.

The great philosopher Socrates was an ancient Athenian who lived in the world’s first democracy. Most disappointingly, he was not a fan. Were he alive today, I feel sure he would see things differently.

One of his criticisms was of the way the public tends to vote. In a contest between a doctor and a chef or sweet shop owner, he argued people would always be more attracted to the offer of “feasts of many and varied pleasant things” than one of “bitter potions... and restrictions on your eating and drinking”, however good for us they might be.

In refusing to accept the country is in a bad way and needs to swallow some bitter medicine, we are falling into the trap that Socrates described. It may be too much to ask for a country with an obesity crisis – and admittedly I am overweight – but we need to get much better at working out what is actually good for us.

Just like MPs and the Prime Minister, we all love a freebie, but sometimes the cost is simply too high.