Shannon Case Sparks Welfare Crackdown

MINISTERS will this week order a historic crackdown on Britain’s benefits culture in the wake of the Karen Matthews kidnapping case. Lone parents and the long-term sick who rely on state benefits will be told to find a job or face having their payments cut, as the Government tries to end the “Matthews culture” of spending an entire life on welfare.

Ministers will press home their message by releasing new polls which show that more than 90% of people in Britain support moves to force people on benefits into back-to-work programmes.

The public also backs measures to compel disabled people to take up suitable employment, the surveys suggest.

The reforms, to be laid before Parliament, could trigger a social revolution in Scotland where one in 10 of the working age population – or 300,000 people – is on sickness benefit.

New figures obtained by Scotland on Sunday show that in the worst-affected areas of Glasgow a third of 16 to 64-year-olds are claiming incapacity benefit of £80 a week.

The SNP hit out at the measures last night, insisting a recession was no time to be cracking down on the poorest in society. Nationalists also warned it would be the most vulnerable people on benefits who would be hit hardest by the crackdown.

The measures come just a week after the conviction of Matthews refocused attention on the problem of welfare dependency in Britain. The 32-year-old mother – who was last week found guilty of kidnapping her daughter Shannon – had never worked and at the time of her arrest was receiving about £250 a week in benefits.

Work and Pensions Secretary James Purnell will say the culture of a lifetime on benefits is to end. They will legislate to allow private contractors to run job-placement programmes designed to get the long-term unemployed back into work.

Those who refuse to accept offers of help could face cuts in their benefits or other sanctions. Benefit cheats could be ordered to undertake community work, while drug addicts who refuse treatment could have their benefits cut.

Officials say they will increase support to those who are genuinely unable to work. But they say the current system is failing to reach the thousands of people on benefits who, like Matthews, do not even consider work. One Government source said: “Many people will choose to work. But it is the Karen Matthews who don’t take it up and they are the ones we need to look at.”

Polling to be released by the Government tomorrow suggests the public is now swinging behind a crackdown on Britain’s welfare culture as the country plunges into recession.

Across the UK, 93% of those polled said they backed moves to force people on incapacity benefit to agree to a back-to-work action plan.

Asked whether disabled or sick people should have to accept work as deemed appropriate or face cuts in their benefits, 73% agreed. There was also support for measures to force the long-term unemployed on Job Seekers’ Allowance to undertake work in return for benefit. A total of 83% said they supported the moves.

While backing for a crackdown is lower in Scotland, a clear majority still appear to support the moves, the survey said.

Among the most controversial measures likely to be unveiled this week is a proposal to force almost all lone parents to get ready for the workplace.

A review published last week by academic Paul Gregg recommended such parents should be told to attend back-

to-work programmes as soon as their children turn one.

This week’s poll shows that the vast majority support measures to get lone mothers with young children back into work.

One senior Government source said: ” We don’t want a society where people are living their entire lives on benefits, so we want to increase support and in return expect more from all those people who can work, and if they can’t then give them extra support.

“Karen Matthews is an evil woman who was clearly in a mess and there is nothing the state can do to intervene there. However, that whole idea of a life on benefits is one we want to bring to an end.”

SNP MP John Mason said: “I would be the first to accept that there will be people who abuse the system but I think the fear is that it is the more vulnerable ones who will be most hit by these plans.

“There is a real concern about the people over 50 who lose their jobs and for whom it is always difficult to get back into work. Meanwhile, those like Karen Matthews will work around the system.”

In England, the UK Government is set to launch a root and branch reform of social services following the death of Baby P after months of abuse.

A Scottish Government spokesman pledged that ministers here would learn from the tragedy. However, the Conservatives accused Labour of “stealing their own ideas” on welfare reform,

Welfare reform to help repair broken Britain

KAREN Matthews, mother of seven children fathered by five different men, led a life which almost parodies the “benefits scrounger” stereotype.

The pizzas delivered to her door, the beer and the 60-a-day cigarette habit were all funded with benefit payments of £286.60 a week, boosted every time she had another child.

This week her example will be highlighted as ministers promise a historic shift in society – a once-in-a-generation reform to the welfare system now blamed for propping up “broken Britain”.

The moves will effectively reverse 40 years of policy which began with the 1968 Social Security Act, when the newly created “supplementary benefit” was created. It came with an effective guarantee that the cash would be paid indefinitely and that inspectors had no right to chase recipients to ensure they were seeking work.

This week, however, James Purnell, the Work and Pensions Secretary, will announce plans to create a new industry made up of voluntary and private sector groups, who will be paid to seek out the 3.1 million people in the UK who have been on benefits for over a year and get them back into a job.

Contracts will be awarded to those with the best ‘hit rates’. And to end the culture which sees the state as an ever-flowing tap of cash, the Government is wielding a big stick: mandatory work programmes for the unemployed, making long-term claimants sign on every day, removing benefits from addicts who refuse treatment, and health checks for everyone on incapacity benefit.

Reform in Scotland will be felt particularly strongly because of the high level of welfare dependency. One in 10 of the working-age population is on incapacity benefit. In the worst-affected parts of the country – for example, the east end of Glasgow – more than a third of 16 to 65-year-olds are on benefits.

Public health chiefs say that while some of those 335,000 people are genuinely unable to work, many could take up some of the tens of thousands of job vacancies across the country. The difficulty of shifting many such people back into work is that their problems are now more mental than physical.

The idea of removing benefits from such people has already roused fury within the Labour party. Mark Serwotka, of the Public and Commercial Services Union, has described the moves as “a fundamental assault on the welfare state”.

Purnell, who served his apprenticeship under Tony Blair, is likely to cement his reputation this week as the Labour minister the Left loves to hate. The minister insists he is simply returning the welfare state to its founding values. “There is nothing left-wing about people being trapped on benefits, having miserable lives where their universe consists of a trip from the bedroom to the living room,” he declares.

But the task will be huge, say researchers. One of Scotland’s leading public health experts, Dr Ewan MacDonald, the head of Healthy Working Lives Research Group at Glasgow University, says: “Worklessness is the most significant risk to public health we have.”

Social scientists such as the American Charles Murray, who coined the phrase “underclass”, say that nothing will work until countries such as Britain accept a massive culture change. “A lot of people don’t know how to hold down a job. It isn’t a matter of teaching skills. They can’t deal with supervised relationships, so employers don’t want to employ them, for good reason. “