When asked twice today if young people’s benefits would be reduced if they declined to accept employment or training, a cabinet minister squirmed.
Work and Pensions Secretary Liz Kendall eventually committed to the move after a toe-curling discussion on Sky News over Labour’s new welfare crackdown.
Keir Starmer has promised “sweeping changes,” including a crackdown on cheaters and those who “game the system,” and has pledged to curb the “bulging” benefits bill that is “blighting our society.”
Ms Kendall is unveiling a package of legislation on Tuesday to ‘get Britain working’, after officials predict that more than four million people will be claiming long-term sickness benefits by 2030. That would be 60 percent higher than before the pandemic.
But she evaded as she was continually questioned by presenter Trevor Phillips on whether young people will be docked benefits if they do not accept opportunities.
She was accused by an increasingly irate Phillips of “dancing around” the question of whether sanctions would be imposed, which would exacerbate tensions with the Labour Left.
Eventually, Ms Kendall said that ‘if people repeatedly refuse to take up the training or work responsibilities there will be sanctions on their benefits’.
Pressed if that meant they would ‘lose benefits’, the minister replied: ‘Yes.’
Sir Keir used an article in the Mail on Sunday today to signal a new focus on domestic politics, after the extraordinary Budget tax raid and a backlash over his globetrotting fueled a slump in Labour’s poll ratings.
He said that the reforms announced this week will pave the way for ‘the biggest overhaul of employment support in memory’.
He wrote: ‘Make no mistake, we will get to grips with the bulging benefits bill blighting our society.’
‘Don’t get me wrong – we will crack down hard on anyone who tries to game the system, to tackle fraud so we can take cash straight from the banks of fraudsters.
‘There will be a zero-tolerance approach to these criminals. My pledge to Mail on Sunday readers is this: I will grip this problem once and for all.’
Tens of thousands of individuals who are economically inactive due to health issues will be hired for non-clinical positions as part of Labour’s intentions to give the NHS a role in helping people return to work.
The employment of job coaches in mental health clinics is also anticipated to be covered in Ms Kendall’s White Paper.
Whoops: “assigning a non-clinical role to the NHS to help people return to work, such as hiring tens of thousands of people who are economically inactive due to health issues.”
The NHS already employs far too many individuals in non-clinical positions. This runs counter to efforts to simplify the NHS by cutting out non-clinical positions that aren’t required and using the savings to hire more physicians, nurses, and other healthcare professionals.
It appears that our government is unable to understand that sending jobless people to interviews does not guarantee that they will be hired, and many will do all in their power to ensure that they are not hired. Despite their persistent efforts, they will never succeed.
Please don’t expect our infantile government to make any rational suggestions; even if they do, the execution will be so poorly planned that it will be yet another utter disaster on the part of Labour.
The trouble is, with increasing prices and the price of rent in this country, which is excessive. Low-paid workers’ wages go straight to the landlord, the rest is utilities and council tax. There is no incentive to work, and if you do work, it’s about survival, with no life at all.
They say that working gives you self-respect, perhaps those on a good wage, but for those who are on a very poor wage, working long hours for peanuts, that can be extremely demeaning – more demeaning than being on benefits.
THE MONTHLY MOSQUITO 