2025 has felt a little like 2015. An unpopular government proposing cuts to social security, instead of taxing the rich.

Back then it was David Cameron’s government cutting benefits, while handing out tax breaks to the rich and to corporations.

Ten years on, with a change of government, so much remains the same — even down to the same benefit, personal independence payments, being targeted. Most disappointingly, the same smears and lies have been peddled to demonise claimants in an attempt to justify removing their benefits.

But just like a decade ago, a coalition of disability groups, unions like PCS, and progressive MPs have forced the government to U-turn and row back on their cuts. PCS has been proud to work with disabled people’s organisations like Disabled People Against Cuts and charities to mobilise public opinion against cutting their living standards, working with MPs in our parliamentary group.

A Labour government that seeks to make the same choices as George Osborne and Iain Duncan Smith a decade before has lost its moral compass — and that is increasingly reflected in the polls, with Labour languishing with just 20 per cent support.

We as a trade union movement have to be clear — this is unacceptable whether from a Conservative or Labour government. There is an alternative and we must campaign for it.

In Britain today, the richest 10 per cent own 50 per cent of personal wealth, while the bottom 50 per cent hold just 9 per cent. We are one of the most unequal societies in the Western world. In many sectors, from banks and utilities to supermarkets, we see rampant profiteering.

We will not accept cuts to workers’ incomes — whether in wages or benefits — while the corporations and the super-rich remain undertaxed.

Earlier this year, PCS published a new pamphlet, The Need for Tax Justice, updating our long-running work in this area. We show how more tax could be collected that is currently avoided and evaded, or goes uncollected for simple lack of resource. We also advocate some tax changes to end and reverse austerity.

At TUC Congress we will be supplementing that with a new pamphlet on welfare: Social Security: An Alternative Vision for Supporting our Communities. In the current climate, it is vital to bust the myths, rebut the lies being peddled and put forward the case for a humane and decent social security system that supports people.

We’ve heard ministers claim that welfare spending is unsustainable and out of control. It’s just not true. For the last 15 years or more, UK spending on social security has been consistently between 10 to 12 per cent of GDP. In 2024, UK social security was 10.8 per cent. That’s not only stable, it’s also considerably less than other comparable countries spend on social security.

The same ministers were saying they were proposing cuts in order to get more people into work, “Those who can work should work” became their mantra. The recently proposed, and then abandoned, cuts to personal independence payments would have cut the benefits of 250,000 working disabled people — and many of those feared that the removal of their support would have forced them to give up work or reduce their hours.

Social security is a trade union issue. Our members, dedicated public servants, don’t just administer the benefits system, many also have to claim universal credit and housing benefit in order to make ends meet.

Our motion 36 to the Trade Union Congress this year makes this clear. It draws on the experiences of our members as the workers forced to administer a social security system that for too many doesn’t actually provide any security.

Our members employed as work coaches say they are not being allowed to help people into work and truly support them — with a punitive sanctions regime putting up barriers between them and claimants.

Thousands of our members have a disability and claim benefits like personal independence payments, giving them the support they need in order to be able to work. Cutting these workers’ benefits risked putting thousands of workers across the country out of a job.

Anyone of us can suffer ill-health or disability at any time. As trade unionists we should all want a decent safety net to be there for us and our families at times like that. Social security is a trade union issue.

When we find ourselves ill, disabled, unemployed or caring for a loved one, we deserve more than poverty and punitive sanctions. And yet that is the reality facing many people on benefits.

There is an alternative. We can tax the super-rich and the corporations. Instead, too many of our politicians seem determined to scapegoat benefit claimants or migrants. PCS will not stand by and let that happen, and I hope the whole TUC will be united in sending that message.

Fran Heathcote is general secretary of the Public and Commercial Services union.