Whatever new things are revealed in the Queen's Speech (-most items have surely been trailed at least once before,) one notable absence will be reform of Welfare. Since Frank Field was set the task of "thinking the unthinkable" by President Blair early on, and then ignored, what we have seen from Bottler has been greater and greater complexity, more and more waste and more and more people in servile dependence on the state. I would be very surprised if welfare reform figures in the Queen's Speech, although it ought to.
Meanwhile the Conservatives are giving much thought to the matter. I suspect that they will rely heavily on the thinking of Frank Field. Nearly a year ago he expressed his views in the Times newspaper. His views may be summarised under four headings:
1) Welfare benefits should be time limited - when Bill Clinton proposed this there was uproar and protest from all sorts of people on high horses, including bishops. Benefits were limited to five years. The scare stories all proved false - there was a massive exodus from benefit to work, which none of the skeptics could argue away.
2) Authority over welfare should be localised - decisions by local officers, not remote "one size fits all" bureaucratic decisions. The officers, rather than doctors should decide.
3) Benefits should continue for one year after after finding paid work. (This is to ease the problem that many can receive more by staying at home than by working.)
4) Immigration should be tightly controlled - more jobs can then go to current welfare recipients already here.
This would be a kind but firm policy, and in the British case would mean that a high proportion of the over 5 million working age claimants would recover some self respect, rather than languishing for many years on benefit dependency.
A further consequence is that there would be fewer jobs available for potential immigrants, and this "flood of people" would be diminished.
The Conservatives could do a lot worse for the country than adopting these proposals.
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4 comments:
I think that idea is worth trying. If it works in the US and if it gets some people back to work, then e shall money to do other more worthwhile things, like flood defences.
It's a travesty wasted lives sitting at home doing nothing when there are many needs in our local communities that are not being met.
Its got to be worth a try - things are not getting better, despite all the efforts of the Government.
There'll be a lot of opposition from vested interests and the ideological.Nut perhaps the Government is getting there gradually byt employing private firms to help those onmbenefit get back into work.
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