'Flawed' welfare reforms resisted

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Unions and campaign groups will deliver a strong message of opposition to the Welfare Reform Bill during a lobby of Parliament and call on the Government to rethink its plans.

TUC deputy general secretary Frances O'Grady will deliver a hard-hitting speech at the demonstration, saying it was the "wrong Bill for the wrong time".

She will say: "The Government's ideas would be flawed at the best of times, but with Britain deep in recession, these are emphatically not the best of times.

"A new regime for jobseekers, limiting the time for job search and retraining. Tougher rules for parents, undermining the Government's pledge to halve and then end child poverty. The introduction of sanctions, stigmatising the most vulnerable as villains, not victims, and driving working people into poverty, and the privatisation and break up of a world-class public service, with private contractors profiting from joblessness.

"Why, after the near collapse of free-market capitalism, does the Government press ahead with an agenda of privatisation, marketisation and competition? Why, during the worst economic crisis for generations, is there seemingly one rule for the rich and another one for the rest?

"The contrast could not be starker. Bailouts for the bankers, punishments for the poor - welfare for Wall St, workfare for working people. That is unacceptable and we will resist it."

Unions will press for a change in the Government's welfare plans, including an increase in benefits and more retraining schemes to help the unemployed find jobs.

An opinion poll shows little public confidence in private firms taking over some of the work from jobcentres.

The Public and Commercial Services union (PCS) said its survey of 1,000 adults also revealed four out of five were not confident they could survive on the current £60.50 a week rate of jobseeker's allowance.