Welfare Mothers To Be Forced To Work

[Injin]

ALMOST all benefit claimants will be forced either to look for a job or prepare for work if they want to continue to receive state handouts, under a shake-up of the welfare state.

Single mothers of children as young as one and people registered unfit for work will be compelled to go on training courses and work experience or risk cuts to their benefits.

In an interview with The Sunday Times, James Purnell, the work and pensions secretary, said: “Virtually everyone will be doing something in return for their benefits.”

The welfare reform white paper, to be published this week, is set to provoke anger from rebel Labour MPs and campaign groups who believe such measures are unfair in a period of rising unemployment.

The conviction of Karen Matthews for kidnapping her daughter Shannon has shown the perverse consequences of the welfare system. Matthews, who had seven children, had never worked and was existing on £400 a week in benefits.

The government will also announce plans to:

- Reform housing benefit to ensure the jobless can no longer live in large houses courtesy of the taxpayer.

- Allow companies to bid for contracts to place the long-term unemployed in work.

- Introduce a medical testing regime for people on incapacity benefit.

- Impose US-style “work-fare” schemes forcing those who refuse to take jobs to work in return for benefits.

At the core of the reforms is the proposal to divide benefit claimants into three groups.

The first group is made up of unemployed people on jobseeker’s allowance. From 2010, single mothers whose youngest child is aged seven or over will be moved from income support to the allowance. Lone parents now remain on income support until their children reach 16.

The second group will include about 400,000 single parents whose youngest child is aged between one and six, and more than 2m people claiming incapacity benefit. These claimants will face job centre interviews before being forced to undertake training courses or unpaid work placements.

A third group, including seriously disabled people and mothers of young babies, will continue to receive “unconditional” benefits.

There is expected to be legislation next year detailing the powers to be given to benefits advisers to compel claimants to attend official interviews.

Those who fail to turn up could have their benefits cut. Under one proposal being considered, a first offence would result in a claimant losing £12, rising to £24 for a second offence. Repeat offenders could forfeit all their benefits for four weeks and would have only essential bills paid.

The basic rate of income support and jobseeker’s allowance is £60.50 a week.

Purnell said his scheme was “not about stigmatising anybody”.

He said sanctions would be a last resort and the thrust of the reforms was to provide “personalised advice”.

Purnell sought to reassure parents of young children that they would be given assistance finding childcare. “The conditionality would be very different for a one-year-old compared to a six-year-old,” he said.

The new approach would make women like Matthews work rather than rely on welfare, he said.

Terry Rooney, the Labour chairman of the work and pensions select committee, warned that Purnell’s plan would prompt a backbench rebellion when it was debated in the Commons.

“This will lead to a bureaucratic nightmare with tens of thousands of people being called in for interview and then being sent home again,” he said.

“The key question on lone parents is whether childcare is available. In most cases, it is not.”

The Conservatives expressed doubts about the clampdown on lone parents. Chris Grayling, the shadow work and pensions secretary, said: “I don’t think these measures will actually work. Britain urgently needs real welfare reform to end the entitlement culture.”

******wits.

[the-sign-jacker]

They must be expecting million's of job losses and these schemes seem little more that the Communist effort's of massed Chinese workers building huge national project's on minimum capital funding.

Thing's might be so dire that the only way to balance the huge cost of the unemployed is to use them on public project's, making them work for benefit's.

[Injin]

They must be expecting million's of job losses and these schemes seem little more that the Communist effort's of massed Chinese workers building huge national project's on minimum capital funding.

Thing's might be so dire that the only way to balance the huge cost of the unemployed is to use them on public project's, making them work for benefit's.

Dig a hole, fill it in.

You can have a cookie.

Dig another hole, fill it in.

You can have a cookie.

Bow to the hander out of cookies, for he is lord. So sad. What a waste of life.

[the-sign-jacker]

Dig a hole, fill it in.

You can have a cookie.

Dig another hole, fill it in.

You can have a cookie.

Bow to the hander out of cookies, for he is lord. So sad. What a waste of life.

No, what I mean is, they are lining up the population to work for very little. National corporatism.

To begin now attacking the unemployed early while they are a minority and setting forced work orders is excellently cunning.

Once tighter regulation's are set, and the unemployed are put to work, another 6-8 million of them arrive for the same treatment they approved of for the one's currently unemployed.

The employed may one day be genuinely unemployed, so to go along with benefit bashing, is to make a rod for your own back.

We pay national insurance to earn benefit. So if we have to work for it, can we have the tax input's back then ?

[DementedTuna]

"Hello, Ms Chantelle Bartrum"

"Giz ma munney"

"So, what have you done to find work this week?

"Saw cleaning job in the paper, didn't want it cos it's skanky like"

"I'm afraid I'm going to have to cut your benefit if you're refusing to work"

"Nah mate, moi kids'll starve, you can't do nuffink, I'm entitled!"

Multiply that conversation hundreds of thousands of times across the country once a week and you have the real impact of this bill.

Government has 4 choices:

a) Let thousands of children starve to death.

b.) Continue to pay the absolute scummiest layer of our society to breed like rabbits, and provide them with all the food and shelter they need to grow up and then steal from/ stab the hands that feed them.

c) Take children into state care if their parents cannot afford to feed them.

d) Distribute food and clothing vouchers instead of cash for a large proportion of single parent's benefit income, to put an end to masses of women who pop out kids for extra booze and fag money. Extend school hours for impoverished children, and bring back apprenticeship schemes to make sure that even the thickest kids can do some form of useful work.

They will continue to pick option b.) until such a time as the state collapses. You'd think solution d) would be a pretty f**king blindingly obvious solution to anyone in power, but it appears our leaders have a similar amount of intelligence as the chavs that vote for them.

[DementedTuna]

double post

[Injin]

No, what I mean is, they are lining up the population to work for very little. National corporatism.

To begin now attacking the unemployed early while they are a minority and setting forced work orders is excellently cunning.

Once tighter regulation's are set, and the unemployed are put to work, another 6-8 million of them arrive for the same treatment they approved of for the one's currently unemployed.

The employed may one day be genuinely unemployed, so to go along with benefit bashing, is to make a rod for your own back.

We pay national insurance to earn benefit. So if we have to work for it, can we have the tax input's back then ?

That's what I meant also.

Instead of doing ecnomically productive work, they'll just be aimed at whatever madcap scheme the statists fancy doing next. Roads to nowhere, cleaning up places no one goes and no one cares about, manning the ID card centres....

[the-sign-jacker]

That's what I meant also.

Instead of doing ecnomically productive work, they'll just be aimed at whatever madcap scheme the statists fancy doing next. Roads to nowhere, cleaning up places no one goes and no one cares about, manning the ID card centres....

No, I think your misunderstanding me a bit.

What I was trying to say was, they know they will have to support the lives of 6-8 million unemployed people at some point very close to eeh future, and the bill will have to be offset by putting them to work in nationalised industries for basic wages, slightly above welfare.

With inflation getting loose into the food and supply chain, those 'lucky' enough to have state work will be better off than the one's currently on £60pwk dole. Which after the ravages of inflation, will provide only a basic raw miserable living. At the moment, the unemployed enjoy a fairly comfortable, if not luxurious lifestyle that cannot be supported by the lesser tax receipts now coming in.

Before you know it, inflation will have belittled our impotent shores so badly, people will gladly go back to nationalised coal mining or heavy infrastructure work for £120 per week, than eat the sustainence foods, given to the unemployed.

We are the new China, already.

[Methinkshe]

So much for Mandelsputin's worship of Gordon as a reincarnated Moses.

He seems to have forgotten that Moses led the Israelites OUT of slavery in Egypt, not INTO slavery.

I find Peter Mandelson's use of religious imagery quite instructive. Rasputin, the archetype power-behind-the-throne, also indulged in warped mystic/religious practices, hence his soubriquet, the Mad Monk. Which is why I now refer to our own Dark Lord, the power behind Gordon's throne, as Mandelsputin.

[Cogs]

1. Reform housing benefit to ensure the jobless can no longer live in large houses courtesy of the taxpayer.

Surely incompatible with the government allowing people to live mortgage free for two years in houses up to a value of 400k?

Perhaps this will get the market moving again as millions of liar loan applications are filed.

2. Allow companies to bid for contracts to place the long-term unemployed in work.

Yet more corporate welfare for the big consultancy companies. Perhaps the various IT and PFI schemes aren't paying them enough to get by in this climate.

3. Introduce a medical testing regime for people on incapacity benefit.

How about making the one they already have work.

4. Impose US-style “work-fare” schemes forcing those who refuse to take jobs to work in return for benefits.

Yet, yet more corporate welfare for the big consultancy companies.

This is basically about the government finding ways to pay its friends more taxpayer's money, not about anything else. I'm beginning to wonder where the collapse of the PFI scheme holders would leave the government and whether this is to prop up those involved. If only it were about digging holes, what does that cost you, shovels and someone to take a register. It doesn't drive down wages for other people either. I can see stores full of shelfstackers who've turned up and worked for years getting canned for a dragooned army of free labour. Either way, I expect this will consume thousands of billed hours and be hideously expensive. Many years ago I took a course in social policy, what was clear from that is that while most commentators conflate morality (don't be a scrounger) with economic benefits (less public money paid out) the truth is that usually it is cheaper to just give people some money and leave it at that. This is why we don't means test everything, it would cost more than the benefit paid out. This isn't a very noble way of dealing with people and I don't really like it, but I have to question if the current economic climate is the time to splash out so much extra to enforce Daily Mail kick-the-poor morality. Perhaps they could pay a special tax on every copy of their rag sold to fund it? If you think this will save anything you are bonkers.

Edit: Maybe a better way of putting it: they want to put the cost of unemployment benefits off balance sheet. Its going to cost a lot of money for them to do this.

[AC2]

So much for Mandelsputin's worship of Gordon as a reincarnated Moses.

He seems to have forgotten that Moses led the Israelites OUT of slavery in Egypt, not INTO slavery.

I find Peter Mandelson's use of religious imagery quite instructive. Rasputin, the archetype power-behind-the-throne, also indulged in warped mystic/religious practices, hence his soubriquet, the Mad Monk. Which is why I now refer to our own Dark Lord, the power behind Gordon's throne, as Mandelsputin.

He's not mad. I think Grand Vizier is more appropriate. If his latest machinations fail there'll always be a role in panto for him.

Someone on here once commented that roughly 15% of the population is permanently and completely unemployable. It'll be interesting to see what happens when that 15% meets this scheme head-on. My money's on the 15%.

[Mr Prudence]

We have been here many times before with similar initiatives and we still have 8.9 million economic inactive adults in the UK.

I very much doubt whether any of these claimants will be inconvenienced much by this initiative either.

[Guest Mr Parry]

Dig a hole, fill it in.

You can have a cookie.

Dig another hole, fill it in.

You can have a cookie.

Bow to the hander out of cookies, for he is lord. So sad. What a waste of life.

Ask DYIV or Master of Puppets. Digging and refilling holes is what I've done since 1991.

I can tell you now, it's not all that it's cracked up to be.

In the end of course, this scheme will out-compete the normal labour market, forcing more on the dole and hence into the 'scheme'. In the end we all end up dependent on the state, working for the state at the behest of the state.

Now where was it that they last tried that . . .

(Find hint attached)

[the end is a bit nigher]

Reform housing benefit to ensure the jobless can no longer live in large houses courtesy of the taxpayer.

Haven't they just brought in measures to ensure the opposite?

[Bloo Loo]

No, what I mean is, they are lining up the population to work for very little. National corporatism.

snip

This is the dream of a life of leisure featured in tommorrows world in the 1960s.

This is, instead of machines we used 3rd world and Asian workers.

machines need servicing and repair so we could do that to earn a living. cheap overseas workers just get laid off.

[Guest Mr Parry]

This is the dream of a life of leisure featured in tommorrows world in the 1960s.

This is, instead of machines we used 3rd world and Asian workers.

machines need servicing and repair so we could do that to earn a living. cheap overseas workers just get laid off.

Bloo touches on something which I believe is finally coming to pass. I'll have to check with geriatric HPC'ers, but wasn't it the dream of the 1950's that technological innovation and efficinecy would mean people did a fraction of the work they used to.

Much more leisure time?

Where it's gone wrong is the 'hours' culture. We see people that aren't flogging themselves to death as lazy or work shy. Add to that interest rates demanding ever greater human effort to service.

[sikejsudjek]

Its not a bad idea. If they get 6-8 million people fitter, well trained with a shovel and pick axe, we might have the potential for a serious riot and the removal of the Stalinist elite.

Once again Labour are going about hitting their core voters. Think the 10p tax band was a fiasco, just wait until this is put forward. Again simplistic solutions to age old problems that won't work. I remember the Tories trying similar - we had a blind lady attempting to be trained on making wicker baskets ! She couldn't manage it and it was a complete waste of time and money. Multiply this many times over, and you have a failed command economy.

I'm waiting for Labour to bring back debtors jails and workhouses. Oh, wait a minute, they're almost there.

[applesauce]

Someone on here once commented that roughly 15% of the population is permanently and completely unemployable.

It has to be more than that now, the fat that's being trimmed now is largely made up of those that only had a job in the first place doing some non-productive nonsense, a lot of those were in the private sector in large companies. A CV with someone who acted as member of the 'synergy enabler team' as an 'account executive' will quite rightly be thrown in the bin.

It isn't just those living on benefits watching sky all day that are a drain on the productive members of society.

[R K]

There are 2 possibilities here:-

1. This is like Margaret calling Portillo into her office and saying "Michael, I have a job for you - I'd like you to implement the Poll Tax"

or

2. Since it will be implemented in 2010 - Gordon is preparing poison pills for the Tories. A massive rise in the unemployment figures just as they take power.

Edit: Who will be left to vote Labour by the spring?

[Fed Up]

If the thousands of Karen Matthews clones in this country are forced to work for their £400-a-week handouts, then about bloody time too!

[1929crash]

Dig a hole, fill it in.

You can have a cookie.

Dig another hole, fill it in.

You can have a cookie.

Bow to the hander out of cookies, for he is lord. So sad. What a waste of life.

Things must be getting real bad. I agree with you, Injin.

[Guest Mr Parry]

If the thousands of Karen Matthews clones in this country are forced to work for their £400-a-week handouts, then about bloody time too!

True and I agree entirely. One of the reasons it's bye-bye Britain for me. But this 'scheme' has certain self-reinforcing implications.

In the end everyone winds up in it.

[tired]

- Reform housing benefit to ensure the jobless can no longer live in large houses courtesy of the taxpayer.

But mortgagees will have their interest paid for up to 2 years so that they can stay in large house courtesy of the taxpayer. Loving the consistency.

[piece of paper]

At least it is consistent. Over borrowing has been addressed by additional borrowing. The reduction in jobs available is to be addressed by getting more people into employment.

p-o-p

[R K]

If the thousands of Karen Matthews clones in this country are forced to work for their £400-a-week handouts, then about bloody time too!

Please tell me what service you would pay Ms Matthews (clones) £20-30k p.a. for? I'm at a loss on that one.

Gordon's education system and benefits system has caused a generation of poorly educated women to learn to get pregnant to survive. Now he is telling them they're feckless scroungers who must go out and earn £30k p.a. doing something (I'm not sure what) which they have no qualifications, experience, or abilities to do.

In fact the only paid employment I can see which would be suitable for them is Labour politician.