LABOUR launched a new extreme attack on the unemployed yesterday, announcing that if they do not find a job within a year they will be kicked off benefits.
The Labour Party are vying with the Tory Coalition over who can attack the unemployed people more viciously.
In a speech to the right-wing IPPR think tank in London, Labour’s Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury Rachel Reeves said: ‘And this is why the centrepiece and foundation stone of Labour’s economic plan is a compulsory jobs guarantee for young people and the long term unemployed.
‘This would mean that anyone over 25 who has been receiving JobSeeker’s Allowance for two years or more and anyone under 25 who has been receiving JobSeeker’s Allowance for one year or more would get a guaranteed job, paying at least the minimum wage for 25 hours a week and training of at least 10 hours a week.’
She added: ‘The job guarantee will provide a backstop for our social security system, making it impossible for people who could and should be working to remain on benefits for years on end.’
Reeves then revealed a further attack, with plans to force all new claimants of Jobseeker’s Allowance to sit the basic skills test within six weeks or have their benefits stripped.
She said: ‘A Labour government will introduce a basic skills test to assess all new claimants for Jobseeker’s Allowance within six weeks of claiming benefits.
‘Those who don’t have the skills they need for a job will have to take up training alongside their job search or lose their benefits.’
She claimed: ‘It’s right that we retain that principle of reciprocity as the lynchpin of a fair and sustainable system.’
Meanwhile Tory Coalition Home Secretary Theresa May and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith launched further attacks on workers coming to Britain from countries in the European Union.
In a joint statement, May and Smith said: ‘No longer can people come here from abroad and expect to get something for nothing,’ adding: ‘For those migrants who do come here, we’re ensuring they are unable to take unfair advantage of our system by accessing benefits as soon as they arrive.’
‘From the beginning of April we will be removing entitlement to housing benefit altogether for this group’.
Reeves rushed to agree with the Tory attack, claiming her party was ‘supportive of policies that protect the integrity of the welfare state’.
