Plenty of jobs out there, minister warns workshy

TAXPAYERS' cash will not be "frittered away" on benefit claimants who play the system during the recession, the Work and Pensions Secretary warned today.

Unveiling Labour's long-awaited welfare reform plans, Mr Purnell said virtually every claimant - from lone parents to those claiming sickness benefit - would have to take steps to get back into work or face sanctions.

He stressed the downturn was not an excuse for anyone to avoid getting a job, pointing out that there were still 500,000 vacancies in the economy and 200,000 people a month finding work.

Under today's plans, the hard core of claimants who refuse to help themselves will be forced to work for benefit. A new scale of penalties will start, with the loss of first one week's and then two week's benefit, rising to being forced to do "work activity" for state payments. The only exceptions to the tougher rules will be carers, workless parents of children under one, and the severely disabled.

Critics said the plans would only start kicking in from 2010 and were "too little too late".

Mr Purnell said the recession was precisely the time to press ahead with reform. Invoking patriotism in a time of national crisis, he quoted Herbert Morrison, a Labour minister in Churchill's wartime govenrnment: "We have not hands or brains to waste, and no resources to fritter away on those who don't contribute to our national effort."

The Government will invest an extra £1.5 billion in more job centre advisers, but the help will have to be matched by an obligation on claimants that they have to try to get ready for work. Housing benefit, which has vexed previous governments wanting to reform its £11 billon a year budget, will also be tackled.

The White Paper on Welfare Reform, published today, states: "Every redundancy is a personal tragedy and our immediate priority is to provide all the help we can during this period of insecurity. But even as the overall number on Jobseekers' Allowance rises ... over 220,000 people still move off the benefit each month".

In a Commons statement, Mr Purnell said he wanted to "transform" the lives of people on benefits through more help with training and childcare: "It's a fair deal. More support, in return for higher expectations." Private and voluntary organisations would invest in helping people into work, and would be paid out of benefit savings. Most people on incapacity benefit would have to attend job interviews. The unemployed would be expected to do four weeks' full-time activity after a year out of work.

Pilot schemes would require them to work full-time for benefits after two years. In the long term, the benefits system could be simplified to create a single working-age benefit for everyone.