Conservative Party leader David Cameron has unveiled a series of measures which, he claims, will get the long-term unemployed back into work.
The Opposition leader insisted that work was the best way out of poverty, as he defended Conservative proposals to strip claimants of their out-of-work benefits if they refuse to sign up to ‘return to work’ programmes.
Under the proposals, the long-term unemployed would also be forced to join community work programmes if they want to carry on claiming benefits.
The Tories have already warned of the three-strike rule, which would stop Jobseeker’s Allowance (JSA) for three years to claimants who turn down three reasonable job offers.
Incapacity Benefit claimants would also have to undergo a new assessment to gauge their fitness to work.
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“We need to take some quite tough steps to say, ‘Look, if you are in receipt of Jobseeker’s Allowance and you don’t accept a reasonable job offer, then the something-for-nothing culture has got to go’,” Cameron told GMTV. “You can’t just sit at home and say ‘I’m not going to work’.”
The Conservative proposals include
- a two-year limit for JSA claimants
- a mandatory, year-long community work programme after that, or face losing their benefits and
- a network of ‘back-to-work’ centres around the country, where claimants would be expected to spend most of their working week.
