Posted on 12/16/2006 6:35:56 PM PST by blam
Fresh attempt to force work-shy to find jobs
By Patrick Hennessy, Political Editor, Sunday Telegraph
Last Updated: 1:28am GMT 17/12/2006
Ministers will launch a fresh crack-down this week on what they call the "can work, won't work" generation of long-term benefit claimants.
John Hutton: Hardline approach
John Hutton, the Work and Pensions Secretary, will use a speech tomorrow to claim that tens of thousands are losing out in the jobs market to growing numbers of immigrants, many from eastern Europe, even though "opportunities are out there".
Mr Hutton's hardline approach will dismay many backbench Labour MPs, who will fight any move to cut the benefits of long-term claimants of the Jobseeker's Allowance or to introduce any measure of compulsion to seek work before benefits are paid.
Sources close to the minister, however, said his "mind is entirely open" and that he would examine all options in what would in effect be a wide-ranging review of the Welfare State, nine years after Labour took power. His surprise move will be seen as provocative by allies of Gordon Brown, the overwhelming favourite to take over from Tony Blair as Labour leader, who jealously guards swathes of domestic policy.
Mr Hutton, however, has not ruled himself out as a Blairite challenger to the Chancellor when the Prime Minister steps down, should John Reid, the Home Secretary, not join the contest. In a speech at the Institute for Public Policy Research in London, he will claim: "The next challenge we face is to ensure the hard-core of 'can work but won't work' benefit claimants take advantage of the opportunities out there and compete for jobs alongside growing numbers of migrants who arrive in Britain specifically to look for work rather than to settle for the long term."
There are about 900,000 people claiming Jobseeker's Allowance, about 12 per cent of whom have spent six of the past seven years on benefits, according to Government figures.
Mr Hutton's new initiative - part of the "rolling policy programmes" set up by Mr Blair recently - follows a spate of largely ineffectual efforts to get the long-term unemployed back to work, including various phases of the New Deal and schemes to provide "mentors" to claimants.
It will also be seen as evidence that ministers badly miscalculated the numbers coming to Britain to find work from the European Union's new member states. More than 500,000 have arrived from Poland and other countries since 2004, dwarfing the Home Office estimate of 13,000.
Britain's senior statistician admitted yesterday that the exact number of illegal immigrants and asylum seekers would not be known until 2012. Karen Dunnell, who heads the Government's Task Force on Migration, said: "There is now a broad recognition that available estimates of migrant numbers are inadequate."
David Ruffley, the shadow minister for welfare reform, said: "This is simply short-term rhetoric rather than the long-term solutions the country needs."
Lot of jobs available pulling cable in the Airbus 380.
Ooops, Time to outsource the Home Office!
GET A DAMN JOB - YOU LAZY, TEAT SUCKING, PIECES of SH!T. WHY ON EARTH WOULD YOU THINK THAT YOUR FELLOW CITIZENS ARE WILLING TO PAY YOU FOR SITTING ON YOUR FRIGGIN' ASS?....GET A JOB....ANY JOB........
Cut off all government aid and you will be surprised how fast people will find employment. A lesson we could learn here.
Just wait: this guy will be charged with human rights abuses yet.
Looks likw you got the same problem there. Immigrants doing the work that Brits won't do.
So 'work-shy' is the new euphamism for 'lazy scum'?
Yup. A lazy POS!
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." -Manuel II Paleologus
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