Mobile jobless 'a return to get on your bike'

Published on Sunday 27 June 2010 23:31

CONTROVERSIAL plans to move thousands of unemployed people around the country to find them work are being drawn up by the coalition government.

New Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith has said he wants to provide incentives to the unemployed to move to different areas where there are jobs available.

The policy has been condemned by opponents who said that it had echoes of Norman Tebbit's "get on your bike" philosophy towards the unemployed in 1981.

Mr Duncan Smith, the MP for Lord Tebbit's former parliamentary seat of Chingford, said ministers wanted to encourage jobless people living in council houses to move out of unemployment blackspots to homes in other areas, perhaps hundreds of miles away.

The proposal could have a massive impact on estates in cities such as Glasgow where there is large-scale unemployment and few jobs. Mr Duncan Smith's interest in welfare reform stemmed from a visit he made to the Easterhouse estate in Scotland's largest city shortly after stepping down as Tory party leader.

Yesterday he insisted that nobody would be forced to move, but said the policy was part of the coalition government's attempts to completely restructure benefits to encourage people to work.

He claimed millions of people were "trapped in estates where there is no work" and could not move because they would lose their accommodation.

The proposed scheme would allow them to go to the top of the housing list in another area rather than giving up their right to a home.

"In Britain now we have workforces that are locked to areas and the result of that is we have over five and a half million people of working age who simply don't do a job.

"Often they are trapped in estates where there is no work near there and – because they have a lifetime tenure of that house – to go to work from east London to west London, or Bristol, or whatever is too much of a risk because if you up sticks and go you will have lost your right to your house.

"The local council is going to tell you that you don't have a right to a house there, the housing association is not going to give you one. We have to look at how we get that portability, so that people can be more flexible, can look for work, can take the risk to do it."

The coalition is believed to be looking at providing incentives for workers to relocate, rather than compelling them to move.

A major shake-up of housing benefit and increased health checks for disability claimants were announced last week as part of the biggest cuts in public spending for decades.

Ministers will unveil measures in the coming weeks to "make work pay", including changing the threshold at which claims are withdrawn so people who take work do not lose all their benefits.

But the policy was attacked by political opponents yesterday, led by Labour leadership contender Ed Miliband.

"I'm afraid it does bear all the hallmarks of Norman Tebbit because it is in the 'get on your bike' territory. This is not the way to deal with the problem," he said.

SNP work and pensions spokeswoman in Westminster, Eilidh Whiteford said: "The Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats are on a tandem – pedalling straight back to the 'get on your bike' hard right policies of the Thatcher years. Thirteen years of Labour government have left the most vulnerable in society in a perilous position."

LIB-LAB PACT TALKS OVER OPPOSITION TO BUDGET

REBEL Liberal Democrats are looking to Scotland for leadership in a possible deal with Labour to oppose the coalition government's austerity budget.

Talks have been taking place between Labour and left-leaning Lib Dems unhappy with the deal with the Tories to bring changes to the Budget unveiled by George Osborne last week.

According to some party sources they hope that one of two former leaders – Charles Kennedy and Sir Menzies Campbell – will head opposition to some of the Budget measures.

The strains within the party come as the latest ICM poll shows the Liberal Democrats losing support, down to 16 per cent with the Tories on 41 per cent and Labour on 35.

Neither Mr Kennedy nor Sir Menzies was available to comment.