Benefit reforms 'mean fair deal'
James Purnell says the government will give support to those looking for work
(From the BBC article)
Plans to force more benefit claimants to prepare for work or face losing payments are a "fair deal", says Work and Pensions Secretary James Purnell.
He said private firms would be paid to get people back to work while those unemployed for a year would have to do four weeks' full-time activity.
Most people on incapacity benefit would be expected to attend job interviews.
The Conservatives said they would back the plans in the face of an expected "big rebellion" from Labour MPs.
A welfare reform bill is expected to be published in January and any changes would come in 2010/11.
Treatment allowance
Outlining the welfare white paper, Mr Purnell told MPs it would adopt in full recommendations made by the Freud Review last year, which said private and voluntary organisations should be paid to get people back to work.
It also supported the "vision" of last week's Gregg Review, which said most people on incapacity benefit and lone parents on income support should be looking for work or preparing for it through courses and regular interviews.
Mr Purnell told MPs unemployed people would be expected to do four weeks' full-time activity after a year out of work.
There would also be pilot schemes requiring Jobseekers' Allowance claimants to work for their benefits after two years.
Under the plans drug users would get a treatment allowance instead of unemployment benefits - and would have to show they were addressing their addiction to receive them.
Mr Purnell told MPs: "We want virtually everyone who is claiming benefits to be preparing for work or looking for work. It is a fair deal, more support in return for higher expectations."
Ah! you see, this is what it is really all about, 'private firms would be paid to get people back to work,' This appears to be more of like it's 'jobs for the boys' than actually creating more real jobs and training for the sick or unemployed.
Then get them to attend interviews and training schemes, ran by private companies, not by publicly owned institution, accountable to the tax payer, who are able cream off the profits from the tax payer by delivering, if anything like the training I have attended over the years, training which is generally patronising and shoddy, delivered by tutors on around £25,000 per year.
How many politicians, or their family members or friends and associates will have shares in or run such companies or formulate such companies to provide this training?
They will counter this point by saying, but there will be checks and balances and any poorly performing service provider will lose their contract, and this on the surface would appear to be a solution, but, in the real world, we know for past examples that poor performance is no assurance that they would lose any contracts, and there is nothing stopping such companies from closing down one operation, re- branding themselves and starting up again, like a lot of small businesses do when faced with such difficulties as say, bankruptcy.
He added: "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 than they could then.
"But most of all we cannot afford to waste a single person's talent."
Oh! Please, how patronising!
Successive governments have been doing that for centuries by profiteering for shareholders and by the lack of inward investment in our countries infrastructure, its manufacturing base, and education and health systems.
They have sold off the 'family silver' a long time ago and they, and subsequently, us, are now paying the price for their folly.
Our currency is based only on the liquidity of debt and not on anything of substance such as gold reserves. Who in their right mind would trust such a system?
The valid criticisms levelled at the government's "borrow and spend" strategy by Germany's finance minister Peer Steinbruck on the government's plans to combat the economic downturn has criticised the UK's decision to cut VAT and raise the national debt to record levels as "crass" or "breathtaking".
Germany, a country whose history shows all too well the effects of printing money to repay the punitive reparations to the Allied Powers for WW1.
Look at the processes which happened in that country during the 1920 to 1945, the first casualties of the government's strategies were the weak and the vulnerable groups and those whose physical conditions render them a drain on the system.
They were vilified in society and then driving almost to the point of extinction.
One can see similar attitudes now towards those self same groups in the UK in 2008.
This hollow financial system, which our future wealth and employment creation is balanced upon, is a self devouring monster constantly chasing its tail and gaining rapidly.
Mr Purnell said mistakes had been made in the 1980s and 1990s when hundreds of thousands of people were put on inactive benefits to keep the unemployment count down.
Yes the mistakes made were the decimation of our heavy industries, coal, car and steel production, and our manufacturing base for cheap labour abroad and throwing tens of thousands onto an already overburdened and underfunded welfare system.
The selling off of the council housing stock, causing the have's and the have not's living cheek-by-jowl causing further social division
People's views on benefits reform
He said £1.3bn would be spent helping people find work but there would be "increasing requirements" on people the longer they are out of a job.
"After a year, everyone will be allocated to a private or voluntary provider, and be expected to do four weeks' full-time activity. After two years, we will pilot requiring people to work full-time for their benefit."
But the Lib Dems said proposals in the Gregg Review to encourage single parents with children as young as one to prepare for work were "a step too far".
So here is another problem being stored up for the future. Instead of the natural order of things, the family unit, being supported by a caring, benevolent administration, duty bound to care, support and protect both the care giver, mother, father, and their offspring, we see the systematic undermining of the family, the fragmentation of relationships and this is storing up problems in the form of dysfunctional children growing up into dysfunctional adults who will give rise to more dysfunctional children.
The policies of government were children are influenced by 'professional educators and carers' appear to be more Common Purpose than Common Sense.
If you don't know what Common Purpose is, I suggest you do some research.
'Big rebellion'
The Conservative work and pensions spokesman Chris Grayling also said making lone parents of one-year-olds prepare for work was "just plain wrong".
But he told Mr Purnell the government had adopted Tory policies, adding: "That is why I can assure you today that there is no doubt, we know you are going to face a big rebellion on the Labour backbenches, can I assure you that we will give these proposals our support."
As this demonstrates, there is no substantial difference between the two ‘leading’ parties.
(Though statistically, their memberships are shrinking rapidly as the electorate lose confidence.)
Lib Dem work and pensions spokesman Jenny Willott said: "We need drastic reform of the welfare state, but this should be achieved without isolating vulnerable groups".
The Gregg review recommended that everyone on benefits, apart from the severely ill or disabled, some carers and parents of children under one, should either be actively looking for or preparing themselves for work.
Mr Purnell has stressed that single parents would not be forced to seek work unless there was adequate childcare available to them.
The government faces opposition from Labour backbenchers like John McDonnell who said the government was "dismantling the welfare state".
'Half-baked'
The Parkinson's Disease Society, which said the illness was commonly misunderstood because of its "fluctuating and unpredictable nature", urged ministers to ensure those making decisions to impose sanctions were properly trained to deal with complex conditions like Parkinson's.
Plaid Cymru MP Hywel Williams said many of the proposals seemed to be "inappropriate and unworkable", especially during the economic downturn.
He said fewer than 20,000 job vacancies were advertised in Wales while there were 330,000 working age people on benefit.
"Simply put, there aren't enough jobs for everyone and the situation seems to be worsening," he said.
Simple maths isn't it really.
Where are all these jobs going to come from? Quit simply they are not. What we are likely to see are unemployed undergraduates working along side men reaching retirement age, (hang on, did they recently mention raising the retirement age to 70?) picking up dog turds by the clean end in our parks and gardens for their state handout whilst worrying about how they are going to pay off their student debts.
For the Scottish National Party, John Mason MP said the reforms risked demonising the unemployed.
The demonization of the unemployed is already well rooted within the mind set of a vocal minority of bigots in society and it needs to be asked who does it serve?
"While we will look cautiously and constructively at the wider proposals, half-baked and draconian reforms are not the answer," he said.
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