From The Guardian 12 October 2013:
Labour will be tougher than the Tories when it comes to slashing the benefits bill, Rachel Reeves, the new shadow work and pensions secretary, has insisted in her first interview since winning promotion in Ed Miliband's frontbench reshuffle.
The 34-year-old Reeves, who is seen by many as a possible future party leader, said that under Labour the long-term unemployed would not be able to "linger on benefits" for long periods but would have to take up a guaranteed job offer or lose their state support.
Adopting a firm party line on welfare, the former Bank of England economist stressed that a key part of her task would be to explode the "myth" that Labour is soft on benefit costs, and to prove instead that it will be both tough and fair.
From the BBC 26 March 2014:
MPs are set to vote on plans to introduce an overall cap on the amount the UK spends on welfare each year. Welfare spending, excluding the state pension and some unemployment benefits, would be capped next year at £119.5bn.
The idea, put forward by [Tory] Chancellor George Osborne in last week's Budget, would in future see limits set at the beginning of each Parliament. Labour leader Ed Miliband has backed a welfare cap but some party backbenchers are expected to vote against the plan.
Oh Dear
1 hour ago
2 comments:
"a guaranteed job offer"
Planet Westminster is truly a different world. There are only two places such a job can come from, the first being a vacancy where the employer is being bribed by the government to fill with a member of the long-term unemployed to the disadvantage of a member of the short-term unemployed, who probably a) wants the job more and b) would do it better, and the second be some government funded makework scheme.
B, yes, the whole thing is a mystery to me. More cannon fodder for unscrupulous employers. methinks.
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