Minister warns 'can work, won't work' Britons over benefits

[Daanyeer]

Source: Observer.guardian.co.uk
December 17, 2006 Author: Gaby Hinsliff

Work-shy Britons are in danger of losing out to a new wave of industrious eastern European immigrants over jobs, a cabinet minister will warn this week as he launches a controversial review of benefits.

John Hutton, the Work and Pensions Secretary, will argue that, with 600,000 vacancies nationwide, there should be jobs for most of those who want them. And he will say that a 'can work, won't work' minority who refuse to take up opportunities will be targeted in the review, which could lead to tougher sanctions against those judged not to be co-operating with efforts to find employment.

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Hutton's attack follows complaints from a number of Labour MPs that the influx of eastern Europeans following EU expansion two years ago has undercut wages and cost jobs among British-born workers, particularly in industries such as construction, where Polish plumbers and carpenters have proved both cheap and popular with householders.

Such fears led in part to the Home Secretary's recent decision to restrict the right to work in Britain for Romanians and Bulgarians, who join the EU formally in January.

Ministers say privately there is no evidence that recent rises in unemployment are directly linked to the arrival of eastern Europeans. But Hutton will argue that, in future, homegrown benefit claimants who are reluctant to work will be left behind by foreigners eager for jobs.

In a speech to the Institute for Public Policy Research tomorrow, Hutton will say the major problem holding people back in 1997 was lack of jobs, but that, since then, things have changed: 'We are in the middle of the longest period of economic growth for hundreds of years and there are about 600,000 vacancies across Britain. But there are still 900,000 people on jobseekers' allowance, and more than two thirds of claims are made by people who have claimed before.'

Of these, 12 per cent had spent six of the past seven years on benefits, 'so the next challenge we face is to ensure the hard core of "can work but won't work" benefit claimants take advantage of the opportunities out there and compete for jobs alongside growing numbers of migrants who arrive in Britain specifically to look for work rather than settle for the long term'.

Ministers argue that, unlike the immigrants of the Sixties and Seventies who came to Britain primarily to live, many eastern Europeans come to work for a few years with the intention of making enough money to enjoy a better standard of living when they return home.

While here, they are motivated to work long hours in jobs Britons do not necessarily want: they cannot claim benefits in the same way as naturalised Britons, and their rates of employment are well over the 80 per cent target set by the Chancellor for the British population.

The review is expected to be completed within months, and Hutton is said to be 'open-minded' about where it might lead.

He has not ruled out tougher sanctions such as withdrawal of benefits for those judged not actively to be seeking work.

The change of rhetoric may spark comparisons with Norman Tebbit's famous 'on your bike' exhortation to the unemployed to find work, and is likely to upset some Labour MPs. However aides insist the intention is not to 'do a Tebbit': instead the review is seen as following on from the reform of incapacity benefits now going through Parliament.

That review will look not just at jobseekers' allowance claimants but at other forms of benefit and will examine how getting more people into work could contribute to government targets to reduce child poverty.

The move follows Iain Duncan Smith's report for the Conservative party on the causes of poverty last week, and comes ahead of separate Liberal Democrat proposals this week to tackle poverty by making work pay.