Church leaders attack planned benefit reforms
Church leaders in Scotland launched an unprecedented attack on the UK Government over its radical plans to reform the benefits system.
Rev Ian Galloway pictured in 2009.
- By Stefan Morkis
- Published in the Courier : 12.11.10
- Published online : 12.11.10 @ 07.36am
Work and pensions secretary Iain Duncan Smith unveiled plans to strip benefits from anyone who knocks back three job offers and to combine six separate benefits into a single payment.
Mr Duncan Smith, who said the plans represent a "fair deal" for both the jobless and the taxpayer, also wants to force the long-term unemployed to undertake voluntary, manual or community work.
Mr Duncan Smith said unemployed people who persistently fail to turn up or turned down and refused to apply for jobs will lose their £65-a-week Job Seekers Allowance for up to three years.
The allowance will be removed for three months on a first offence, six months the second time and three years the third time it happens. There will be no right of appeal.
He also claimed it was "a sin" that 70% of the extra jobs created over the last 14 years had been taken by immigrants because British people were not "capable or able" to do them and that this showed reducing unemployment is not just a case of creating jobs.
"This new contract where we actually do our best to try and find work with people, to make them work-ready, to make work pay and to say you will always be better off in work than on benefits, is a fair deal for the taxpayer and a fair deal for the people who need our help," he said.
The government claims 850,000 people, including 350,000 children, will be lifted out of poverty by the changes to welfare.
'Life on benefits no longer possible'
Prime Minister David Cameron said that for anyone able to work "a life of benefits will no longer be an option."
Shadow work and pensions secretary Douglas Alexander said the reforms would have the Opposition's support if done properly.
But he said the massive cuts imposed elsewhere across the benefits system as the price of securing the investment from the Treasury undermined any potential benefits.
"We support the underlying principle of simplifying the benefits system and providing real incentives to work," he said.
However, charities and churches both criticised the plans- particularly the sanctions that are threatened.
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