PRIME Minister Cameron stepped up his war against youth yesterday by launching the new Tory ‘Community Work Programme’.
The programme forces youth to carry out 30 hours a week of unpaid ‘community work’ for six months or be thrown off benefits and onto the streets.
Cameron boasted: ‘Our goal is to essentially abolish long term youth unemployment.’ He will do this by throwing all youth off the Job Seekers Allowance.
Instead youth aged between 18 and 21 will be paid a Youth Allowance, set at just £57.35 a week.
To receive the money youth will have to complete 30 hours a week community work from the first day of submitting a claim.
The work could involve making meals for older people or working for local charities, alongside ten hours of job hunting.
Cameron said of youth: ‘They need the order and discipline of turning up to work each day, so a Conservative government would require them to do daily community work from the very start of their claim for unemployment benefit.
‘When you leave college you should either be earning or learning, you should either be doing apprenticeship, studying at university or a college or doing a job.’
However youth will be ‘earning’ less than £2 an hour!
On the question of Housing Benefit he made it clear that if you have no job you either have to stay at home with your parents or sleep on the streets.
He said: ‘With a Conservative government it will only be possible for a young person to claim housing benefit when they move out, if they have a job.’
Lecturers union UCU slammed Cameron’s proposals as ‘insulting’ and all about ‘punishing young people’ for being unemployed.
UCU general secretary, Sally Hunt, condemned the Cameron line saying: ‘Talk about a well-worn path from school gate to Job Centre is as insulting as it is out of touch, and his proposals are all about punishing young people, rather than helping them’.
Young Socialists National Secretary Joshua Ogunleye said: ‘Youth will not work for free! Cameron’s plan to sack public sector workers and force unemployed youth to do their jobs for free will spark a revolution in Britain.
‘Youth are not slaves. The Young Socialists marched form London to Liverpool to demand that the TUC call a general strike over the questions of jobs for youth and to end zero hour contracts.
‘This government must be brought down!’
