IS there any more dishonest promise routinely uttered by politicians than that they will “make work pay”?
That isn’t quite how it seems for the 4.4million people of working age who, according to a study by accountancy firm PwC, are considering giving up work altogether and living on benefits.
Over 40,000 people a month are taking a Work Capability Assessment and being put on Universal Credit without any kind of requirement to look for work[/caption]
At least Sir Keir Starmer seems to appreciate that the benefits system has become an outrage[/caption]
This includes a quarter of all 18-to-24-year-olds — and they are hardly short of inspiration, as many people already have clocked off to enjoy life on the taxpayer.
More than 40,000 people a month are taking a Work Capability Assessment and being put on Universal Credit without any kind of requirement to look for work — twice the number who were being put “on the sick” a decade ago.
It is true that we have seen periods of high unemployment before, most notably in the 1980s when three million were claiming unemployment benefit. But most then had an excuse — and they were at least expected to visit the Job Centre every so often.
As Britain’s industrial heartlands declined, many factory and mine workers were thrown out of a job, and in communities where there was very little alternative employment to come by. Now, we are not even in recession — or at least not yet.
For much of the past decade the number of people on benefits has been soaring — and yet employers have been crying out for recruits.
The number of people on benefits actually fell between 2010 and 2017.
It then began to rise, slowly at first as the then Conservative government took its eye off the ball.
Then, the pandemic seems fundamentally to have changed Brits’ attitudes towards work.
Too many people seem to have enjoyed, too much, the months they sat at home on furlough being paid 80 per cent of their usual earnings for nothing more demanding than watching the latest Netflix shows.
How do they get away with not even looking for work?
As Health Secretary Wes Streeting said at the weekend, the overdiagnosis of mental-health conditions is one factor feeding an unprecedented explosion in the welfare bill.
That isn’t all, though.
Leaving the EU was supposed to allow us to take back control of migration.
What a sick joke that now seems when human-rights lawyers appear to have wedged their feet in Britain’s back door, in spite of efforts by the Conservatives and Labour to close it.
Kneejerk mode
We are now spending £7.5billion a year on welfare for households with a foreign national.
At least Sir Keir Starmer seems to appreciate that the benefits system has become an outrage, and that the rising bill is totally unsustainable.
A shrinking working population cannot support many millions of people who opt not to work.
To their credit, Chancellor Rachel Reeves, Wes Streeting and Work and Pensions Secretary Liz Kendall also seem to understand this.
But too many Labour backbenchers, like Diane Abbott and former Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell, think it is unacceptable for a government ever to cut any kind of benefit.
If ministers propose to save so much as a penny on welfare they go into kneejerk mode, effectively accusing them of kicking away the crutches of the poor and needy.
How do they get away with not even looking for work?
Ross Clark
There are, of course, many people who genuinely do need help.
But their interests are not best-served by propping up idlers who are making a deliberate choice not to work, and to live off the taxpayer instead.
For years, few seemed to notice that the welfare bill was creeping upwards.
But with the Office for Budgetary Responsibility (OBR) predicting it will rise from £64.7billion in 2023/24 to £100.7billion — in today’s prices — by 2029/30 the burden can no longer be ignored.
It has become a spending crisis which threatens to bankrupt the country.
This time, it is critical that the Government really does make work pay.
