Radical plans to relocate the long term unemployed to areas where there are jobs are being drawn up by the Coalition. Iain Duncan Smith, the Work and Pensions Secretary, discloses the move in an interview with The Sunday Telegraph today in which he outlines proposals to make the workforce “more mobile”. The controversial plan echoes the words of Norman Tebbit in 1981 when he told the unemployed to “get on your bike” and look for work. It is part of tough action to cut spiralling welfare bills and tackle Britain’s record deficit.
Last week a major shake-up of housing benefit and increased health checks for disability claimants were announced as part of the biggest cuts in public spending for almost a century. Duncan Smith, the MP for Lord Tebbit’s former parliamentary seat of Chingford, disclosed that ministers were drawing up plans to encourage jobless people living in council houses to move out of unemployment black spots to homes in other areas, perhaps hundreds of miles away. The former Conservative Party leader said millions of people were “trapped in estates where there is no work” and could not move because they would lose their accommodation. The proposed scheme would allow them to go to the top of the housing list in another area rather than lose their right to a home if they moved.
It is understood that the Coalition is looking at ways to provide incentives for workers to move to areas where there are jobs, such as regional tax reductions, rather than compelling them to move. As the welfare shake-up continues, ministers will unveil measures in the coming weeks to “make work pay” including changing the threshold at which claims are withdrawn so people who take work do not lose all their benefits. But as well as incentives, there will be tough action to cut welfare bills which may prove controversial. Duncan Smith, disclosed details of moves to tackle “under occupation” of large council homes. Last week, the Coalition said it would reform the housing benefit system to stop the state paying up to £100,000 a year in some cases to house families in expensive areas. But Duncan Smith suggested that a tightening of the rules could apply more widely, meaning single occupiers or couples without children could be asked to leave larger houses. Duncan Smith said the “excesses” of some council tenants living in large homes in expensive areas would end, adding: “We need to exert some downward pressure on this now.” Ok, dickbreath.
