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The Living Force
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601102&sid=aZzIxI1c2KzA&refer=uk
U.K. Wants More on Sickness Benefit to Return to Work
By Kitty Donaldson
Dec. 10 (Bloomberg) -- As many as 1 million Britons claiming welfare may lose their benefits unless they make efforts to return to work, under a government proposal aimed at curbing spending as the economy sinks into recession.
The government plans to reassess the 2.6 million people receiving incapacity benefits by 2013 to determine who is healthy enough to return to work, part of an effort to get people back into the labor market.
“Today, when the national effort is about a global downturn, we can no more afford to waste taxpayers’ money on those who play the system,” Work and Pensions Secretary James Purnell said in a statement to the House of Commons in London today. “But most of all we cannot afford to waste a single person’s talent.”
Prime Minister Gordon Brown is under pressure to keep a lid on spending as the budget deficit balloons and the Treasury struggles to finance both a 50 billion-pound ($74 billion) bailout for banks and a 20 billion-pound economic stimulus program.
The Treasury forecasts the bill for social security benefits, excluding tax credits, will reach 164 billion pounds by 2010, a quarter of total government spending.
The benefits crackdown risks a rebellion among ruling Labour Party lawmakers who say the government is withdrawing support at a time when unemployment is rising and the economy is in recession. Purnell said the poorest and most disabled would receive nearly 16 pounds extra in benefits a week.
‘Revolt and Revulsion’
The government “has allowed the bankers to get away with extravagant bonuses and yet is turning on the poorest and most vulnerable,” John McDonnell, a Labour lawmaker, said in an e- mail. The plan “smacks of unfairness and will cause revolt and revulsion” among many in the party and labor unions.
“At a time of rapidly rising unemployment the government needs to stop talking as if every benefit claimant is a potential scrounger,” Brendan Barber, general secretary of the 7-million member Trades Union Congress, said in an e-mail.
The Conservatives’ work and pensions spokesman, Chris Grayling said he had put forward nearly identical proposals in January, adding that his party would back the government.
Welfare Reform
Alongside his statement to lawmakers, Purnell published draft legislation on welfare reform. The plans include requiring single mothers with children as young as one year to take training courses and work experience. The government will provide assistance with child care.
“It will tick the thriftiness box and it will tick the box where people are upset about dole scroungers,” Bill Jones, a lecturer in politics at Manchester University, said in an interview. “It’s a very populist proposal appealing to the right rather than the left.”
The U.K. has an annual long-term sickness benefit bill of about 12.4 billion pounds, equal to almost 1 percent of economic output. From 2010, people receiving incapacity benefit must show they are unable to work for a living to get payments, the government said on March 13.
Unemployment claims in the U.K. rose the most in 16 years in October to 980,900, and the number of vacancies fell 40,000 in the quarter to 589,000 from the previous three months. A broader measure of joblessness increased to 1.83 million in the quarter through September, the highest since Labour came to power in 1997, and many economists expect the total to reach 3 million by 2010.
Purnell said unemployed people would be expected to do four weeks full-time in work after a year out of a job while pilot schemes would require them to work full-time in return for benefits after two years.
Opposite View
“Some people say that we should be slowing down the pace of welfare reform because of the downturn,” Purnell said. “The government believes we should do the opposite.”
The government also plans new rules for heroin and crack cocaine users, including an allowance for claimants who are drug addicts, in place of other benefits they would normally receive, that demands they address their problem or face sanctions.
Lawmakers including former Conservative Party leader Iain Duncan Smith say Britain has an underclass surviving solely on benefits. They cite the case of Karen Matthews, a mother to seven children by six fathers, who had never worked and survived on state handouts before she was convicted of kidnapping her own daughter for the reward money that eventually was offered.
The story “caused horror among people across the country,” Duncan Smith wrote in the Daily Telegraph on Dec. 6. “It is as though a door on to another world has opened slightly and the rest of Britain can peer in.”
Some of the groups targeted in the legislation “are a considerable distance from the labor market as they lack the right skills or recent experience; they are inherently hard and expensive to help,” John Atkinson, spokesman for the Institute for Employment Studies, said in an e-mail. “In addition, they will be competing with newly unemployed people both for access to vacancies and for priority access to public help and support.”
U.K. Wants More on Sickness Benefit to Return to Work
By Kitty Donaldson
Dec. 10 (Bloomberg) -- As many as 1 million Britons claiming welfare may lose their benefits unless they make efforts to return to work, under a government proposal aimed at curbing spending as the economy sinks into recession.
The government plans to reassess the 2.6 million people receiving incapacity benefits by 2013 to determine who is healthy enough to return to work, part of an effort to get people back into the labor market.
“Today, when the national effort is about a global downturn, we can no more afford to waste taxpayers’ money on those who play the system,” Work and Pensions Secretary James Purnell said in a statement to the House of Commons in London today. “But most of all we cannot afford to waste a single person’s talent.”
Prime Minister Gordon Brown is under pressure to keep a lid on spending as the budget deficit balloons and the Treasury struggles to finance both a 50 billion-pound ($74 billion) bailout for banks and a 20 billion-pound economic stimulus program.
The Treasury forecasts the bill for social security benefits, excluding tax credits, will reach 164 billion pounds by 2010, a quarter of total government spending.
The benefits crackdown risks a rebellion among ruling Labour Party lawmakers who say the government is withdrawing support at a time when unemployment is rising and the economy is in recession. Purnell said the poorest and most disabled would receive nearly 16 pounds extra in benefits a week.
‘Revolt and Revulsion’
The government “has allowed the bankers to get away with extravagant bonuses and yet is turning on the poorest and most vulnerable,” John McDonnell, a Labour lawmaker, said in an e- mail. The plan “smacks of unfairness and will cause revolt and revulsion” among many in the party and labor unions.
“At a time of rapidly rising unemployment the government needs to stop talking as if every benefit claimant is a potential scrounger,” Brendan Barber, general secretary of the 7-million member Trades Union Congress, said in an e-mail.
The Conservatives’ work and pensions spokesman, Chris Grayling said he had put forward nearly identical proposals in January, adding that his party would back the government.
Welfare Reform
Alongside his statement to lawmakers, Purnell published draft legislation on welfare reform. The plans include requiring single mothers with children as young as one year to take training courses and work experience. The government will provide assistance with child care.
“It will tick the thriftiness box and it will tick the box where people are upset about dole scroungers,” Bill Jones, a lecturer in politics at Manchester University, said in an interview. “It’s a very populist proposal appealing to the right rather than the left.”
The U.K. has an annual long-term sickness benefit bill of about 12.4 billion pounds, equal to almost 1 percent of economic output. From 2010, people receiving incapacity benefit must show they are unable to work for a living to get payments, the government said on March 13.
Unemployment claims in the U.K. rose the most in 16 years in October to 980,900, and the number of vacancies fell 40,000 in the quarter to 589,000 from the previous three months. A broader measure of joblessness increased to 1.83 million in the quarter through September, the highest since Labour came to power in 1997, and many economists expect the total to reach 3 million by 2010.
Purnell said unemployed people would be expected to do four weeks full-time in work after a year out of a job while pilot schemes would require them to work full-time in return for benefits after two years.
Opposite View
“Some people say that we should be slowing down the pace of welfare reform because of the downturn,” Purnell said. “The government believes we should do the opposite.”
The government also plans new rules for heroin and crack cocaine users, including an allowance for claimants who are drug addicts, in place of other benefits they would normally receive, that demands they address their problem or face sanctions.
Lawmakers including former Conservative Party leader Iain Duncan Smith say Britain has an underclass surviving solely on benefits. They cite the case of Karen Matthews, a mother to seven children by six fathers, who had never worked and survived on state handouts before she was convicted of kidnapping her own daughter for the reward money that eventually was offered.
The story “caused horror among people across the country,” Duncan Smith wrote in the Daily Telegraph on Dec. 6. “It is as though a door on to another world has opened slightly and the rest of Britain can peer in.”
Some of the groups targeted in the legislation “are a considerable distance from the labor market as they lack the right skills or recent experience; they are inherently hard and expensive to help,” John Atkinson, spokesman for the Institute for Employment Studies, said in an e-mail. “In addition, they will be competing with newly unemployed people both for access to vacancies and for priority access to public help and support.”
