RADICAL plans to get hundreds of thousands of people off benefits and into work were being launched today by the Government.
The controversial reforms were hailed by Work and Pensions Secretary James Purnell as the biggest shake-up of the modern welfare state since the Beveridge Report of the 1940s.
And they were backed by Conservative leader David Cameron, who offered ministers the support of his MPs to ensure that the package is not derailed by a Labour backbench rebellion in the House of Commons.
Under the proposals laid out in Mr Purnell's Welfare Reform Green Paper today, Incapacity Benefit will be abolished by 2013 and Income Support will also be scrapped.
In their place will be a simplified system of two benefits - Employment Support Allowance for those with medical problems which limit their ability to work and JobSeekers' Allowance for those who are fit to work.
A leaked late draft of the Green Paper revealed that ministers are aiming for a record 80% employment rate - up from the current 75% - and made clear their insistence that there will be "no right to a life on benefits" for anyone capable of working.
All Incapacity Benefit claimants will undergo medical tests to determine what capacity they have for employment, and only full-time carers and disabled people "with the greatest needs" will be exempt from being expected to find work.
Unemployed drug addicts who lie to get benefits will be forced to repay the money and could face jail, while jobless people who take drugs will be banned from receiving dole money unless they accept treatment.
Lone parents with children aged seven or more will be expected to seek work.
Work for dole
The long-term unemployed will face US-style "work for dole" programmes requiring them to undertake useful activities to ensure they make a "fair contribution" in return for state support.
And private firms which win contracts to help people find jobs could be paid from the resulting savings in benefits.
Mr Purnell said the changes would put responsibility "right at the heart of the welfare state" and help transform the lives of millions of people across the country.
The new sanctions for people who refused to seek work would be matched by support to help them find suitable employment, he said.
"I'm saying 'support and responsibility'," said Mr Purnell. "And if people don't live up to that expectation... then of course people can lose their benefits.
"For people who are looking for work, we will be saying to people if they play the system that they will have to work to get their benefits.
"So there's a very clear sanction at the end of the line. But the key thing is that in an ideal world you don't want to use the sanction, you want people to take up the support."
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Showing comments 1 to 25 and replies | View All
Councillor Allheart, in a black cab (21/07/2008 at 12:24)
Pushkin (21/07/2008 at 12:29)
Grief Tourist, Tameside (21/07/2008 at 12:51)
Redtooth (21/07/2008 at 12:59)
P Dorff (21/07/2008 at 13:18)
What about those people with 'hidden' disabilities that can't work full-time? How will they be provided for? What really defines a disability?
What about a skills bank instead? Thats a good all-round solution to a lot of problems! (something nationally maybe? done by/through the job centre?)
In the meantime, those who are genuinely too ill to work are going to be feeling like they're living in fear of being forced to do something that would possibly be detrimental to their health.
What needs to happen is that the whole Incapacity Benefit thing needs to be totally revamped. The medicals are bog-standard fare that aren't suitable for all those who have to attend them.
The medicals should be suited to to the persons needs and not anything else.
better off red (21/07/2008 at 13:26)
I suppose I'll still be paying taxes to feed people like them?
ps a bacon butty is a couple (maybe four if you're hungry) of rashers of bacon in two slices of bread.
it isn't two packs of bacon in several slices of bread.
same goes for sausages, one or two sausages, not packs.
Councillor Allheart, in a black cab (21/07/2008 at 13:34)
Like most systems, the benefits system has been abused to the point where genuine cases can't get anything.
I could name and shame a lot of people drawing all sorts of benefits that they are simply not entitled to.
The big con at the moment is industrial injury (hearing loss). There's an army (literally) of people claiming for hearing loss due to national service. The majority would be deaf by now any way.
Cheshire Red, Manchester (21/07/2008 at 13:37)
Melandra (21/07/2008 at 13:37)
vera angry (21/07/2008 at 13:48)
Laura Norder, Didsbury (21/07/2008 at 14:02)
I think I was nearly trapped in a lift with your family - brilliant rant! ;-)
Get the workshy and indolent back to work... I'll be firing some staff this afternoon if I catch them (again), on the MEN website. (Or I may just birch them.)
jomov, Manchester (21/07/2008 at 14:04)
To all you out there that voted 'no' on the latest poll...get a job!
Melandra (21/07/2008 at 14:30)
WhiteWolf01, Northumberland (21/07/2008 at 14:55)
What I cannot understand is why the politicians simply do
not do away with unemployment benefits altogether.
With that you could actually wipe out most benefit fraud committed in this country in a day.
Next you could change all Job Center names over to Business centers
And then Make Inland Revenue the central law management system for fraud.
To do all this all you would have to do is raise the unemployment benefit by twenty pounds per week, and soley issue working tax credit. Those with new business ideas could then legitimately raise funds and work, whilst others could use the new founded business centers either to explore any business ideas they could have or alternatively unless they could prove they were earning a wage above the tax credit threshold then they would remain signing on as it were, until a job could be found.
Then whilst in the position of either looking for work or improving, qualifications or even starting up their own business they could then be paid these tax credits.
But in order to be paid these credits, they must be out of the house plausibly doing voluntary work or any of the above and must provide evidence to prove that they are working at least 16 hours a week in whatever capacity.
So why do the politicians keep the unemployment benefit running anyway - well simply because it suits them, it is always a good fallback when things go wrong, after all making examples of people cheating the system makes us all feel so much better even politicians ????
Radical plans!! (ROFL) if this is radical I would hate to know what they think of Bob Dylan.. :)
manchester of course, salford (21/07/2008 at 15:00)
ace, manchester (21/07/2008 at 15:00)
Tony North-Hearn, Stockport (21/07/2008 at 15:20)
Your insane rant about "Fatties",are you a fat person.I work with a disability group and not all obese people are big eaters,many and I mean many have medical conditions that can make people obese.Glands and Thyroid problems can cause obesity.The thing that really worries me is the medical tests.I remember some years ago people being signed off and then dying shortly after.These people who do the medical get paid for every person "Knocked off" IC.I also know that there are many on the sick who have taken insurance policies out to pay all their bills,who want to stay that way to pay their bills.
dessie, manchester (21/07/2008 at 15:29)
theres no way this will be implemented even though it should have been done years ago.
the are too many human rights issues these days!!!
Laura Norder, Didsbury (21/07/2008 at 17:02)
If the porky ones did more exercise - going out to work for instance... or is that too radical for you? - and missed the odd pie, they'd be healthier for it.
I could skip the odd dinner, and be healthier for it, but I can pay my medical bills should extreme lardy-ness become a problem.
Have you considered joining a gym?
Chilli tongue, Manchester (21/07/2008 at 17:53)
Regardless of how they have become so!
Grief Tourist, Tameside (21/07/2008 at 18:02)
ziggy (21/07/2008 at 19:37)
Also for the person that said about working tax credit helping people into work...think again, the government are doing away with it.
And as for all those that moan its about time, you seem to forget many have once worked and paid tax, which is only fair it is given back when one is ill or unemployed. You really should be asking what the government are doing with all the taxes, I see Brown pledged 30 million to Palestine...how come you are not all up in arms about that, yet our own UK people you seem to kick in the teeth.
Well for those that work, the government does not even care about you, taxing you to the extreme, I think you should be taking it out on the government not those that are disabled, or otherwise. You all seem to follow the way the government want you to think...you do know media is all one sided....'
1963 Once a blue always a blue, Stockport Cheshire (21/07/2008 at 20:05)
Chilli tongue, Manchester (21/07/2008 at 20:06)
Stop being soft (unless you are one of them) in which case, get a job!
ziggy (21/07/2008 at 20:24)
Which just shows how much you are manipulated and taken in by the media. The UK is a welfare state, without it, it will not work. And also with the coming recession lets hope all your jobs are safe because you will all wonder what happened to the benefits system.
I just feel many need to open their eyes here, even the press, they are going overboard on bullying the disabled, yet no one says anything about that, only those that can see the truth of the situation.