Law in Film: An Analysis of I, Daniel Blake and its Representation of the Failures of the Welfare System
Though released in 2016, the issues raised by Ken Loach’s I, Daniel Blake about the changes enacted by the Welfare Reform Act of 2012 have remained just as pressing in 2020. In the midst of loud calls for (what was said to be necessary) austerity, the act saw the introduction of Universal Credit and a simplification of the welfare system to ‘improve incentives to work’. Loach’s film uses emotional drama to highlight the problems faced by the individuals forced into the benefits system.
The film tells the story of Daniel Blake (Dave Johns), rendered unable to work by a recent heart attack but denied employment and support allowance. Daniel and newly befriended Katie (Hayley Squires), a single mother from London forced to move to Newcastle for housing, fall through the cracks of the system they find themselves in. As they become increasingly desperate and disillusioned, Loach offers a portrait of a state refusing to bend to individual circumstances, imposing a harsh and impersonal process with little room for empathy or understanding. His portrayal then begs us to question if a film so reliant on emotional storytelling truly paints an accurate picture of the problems in the current welfare system. If so, how can we fix it?
The depiction of a rigid, impersonal system is introduced from the very beginning of I, Daniel Blake. The film opens with Daniel becoming increasingly frustrated at a faceless and almost robotic 'health care professional’ during his work capability assessment. She refuses to diverge from the long and mostly irrelevant pre-written questions despite Daniel telling her ‘you’ve got my medical records, can we just talk about me heart?’. Unlike other representations of people claiming benefits in the media, Daniel is not trying to cheat the system by exaggerating his illness. When Daniel is not deemed eligible for disability allowance, he is told to go on job seekers allowance, forcing him to spend 35 hours a week searching for jobs he cannot accept, instead of focusing on getting better so he can return to work.
The ‘authenticity’ of the film’s narrative and how well it represents the typical experience with the Department of Work and Pensions has been continually questioned. Conservative MP James Cleverly asserted last year that ‘[I, Daniel Blake] is not a documentary’. However, in 2015, the Independent reported that one in four claiming disability benefits ‘encountering serious difficulties, including delays, unfair dismissal of claims and confusion over eligibility’, with thousands of enquiries to the Citizen’s Advice Bureau every month. In 2016, the UN reported austerity measures were “systematic violations” of the rights of disabled people, which was rejected by the UK government. More recently, in August 2020, the House of Lords Economic Affairs Committee said the current welfare system ‘is designed around an idealised claimant and rigid, inflexible features of the system are harming a range of claimant groups, including women, disabled people and the vulnerable.’
Katie and Daniel’s visit to a crowded food bank halfway through the film underlines Katie’s struggle as a single mother trying to feed her kids, while the long queue outside demonstrates the growing reliance on food banks. This pressure is felt even more keenly during the pandemic. The Independent Food Aid Network reports a 177% in emergency food parcels from May 2019 to May 2020, suggesting that the temporary increase in Universal Credit is still not protecting people from relying on them. The spread of Covid-19 and subsequent lockdown has meant the loss of countless jobs and the move of many on to benefits. Whether the surge in demand is enough to insight reform on the system is yet to be seen.
The film presents the welfare system as an incomprehensible bureaucracy Daniel has to navigate alone. He is told the jobcentre is ‘digital by default’, to which he responds, ‘Well I’m pencil by default!’. When Daniel asks for a number to help him, the employee tells him with no sense of irony that ‘he’ll find it online’. Later on, Daniel is left with an online form despite barely knowing how to use a mouse, and when a jobcentre employee does finally help Daniel, she is chastised for ‘setting a precedent’. This lack of thought to those who are not computer literate represents another inflexibility of the system; digitalising for a more streamlined process runs the risk of leaving people like Daniel, namely those most vulnerable, behind without proper help. However, the film points to other incidents of the bureaucracy of the DWP, such as Daniel being left on hold for a long time, adding to his phone bill, or having to fill out a ’52-page form’.
This absurd bureacracy meant Katie’s benefits are sanctioned, leaving her with no income at all and forcing her into prostitution, all because she was late for her appointment after getting the wrong bus to the jobcentre. This reflects Loach’s view that “the present system is one of conscious cruelty,” which “bears down on those least able to bear it.” Frank Field, the chairman of the Work and Pensions Select Committee, agrees and in 2018 noted that “the welfare state is by accident being reshaped into an agent that causes destitution.”
Ken Loach tends to use film as a medium to criticise issues such as homelessness, poverty and the rights of the individual.
Daniel’s appeal against being found ‘fit for work’ is his last hope. But it is also agony waiting for an appeal date for legal justice that might not happen anyway. In 2019, the average wait for an appeal was 62 days, double the waiting time the year before. The appeal process may also reveal issues with the initial assessment, as 3 in 4 go on to win. This suggests while the law can give justice to those in need denied welfare, it is not the last option but the norm, wasting time and money of those involved. In the end, Daniel never sees his day in court, because he suffers a fatal heart attack just before it goes ahead. The film demonstrates even if unlawful decisions are reversed, the damage of the system has already been done. The reluctance of the courts to defend vulnerable people against the government’s discriminatory welfare policies, as demonstrated by R v Secretary of State for Work and Pensions [2019], paints a bleak picture for the future.
At Daniel’s funeral, Katie reads out the speech he planned to read at his appeal, that ends “I, Daniel Blake, am a citizen, nothing more, nothing less.” I, Daniel Blake uses a carefully researched representation of the failures of Britain’s welfare system as an emotional plea for change and welfare reform. Four years later, the real-life versions of Daniel and Katie all over the country are still waiting.