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New Deal for jobs condemned as £75 billion 'expensive failure'
Joe Murphy, Political Editor20 Feb 2009
A DEVASTATING critique of Labour's flagship New Deal for the unemployed has branded it an "expensive failure".
Frank Field, the Labour MP and former minister for welfare reform, said the jobs scheme and related tax credits had cost £75 billion since 1997 yet failed, even at the height of the boom, to produce results.
"The results are derisory," he said, adding that in a decade the number of people doing no work had fallen just 400,000 from 5.7million. Yet at the same time the number of young people not in work or education had actually gone up. Labour's New Deal incorporates a series of schemes that compel the unemployed to take training, work places or community work.
But Mr Field said young people on £100 a week or more in benefits refuse to work for less than a £300 wage. "We have abandoned a generation who believe they have a pension for life," he writes in the Times.
The Labour veteran said only a third of young people held a job for more than 13 weeks after being on the New Deal - even during the boom. The rest returned to living on benefits.
Private training contractors, he said, failed to sanction youngsters who did not turn up, in case they lost fees. Many schemes were unsuitable, he added. For example: putting illiterate people on IT training with too few work stations to go round.
Mr Field said that young people who had never worked were paid a basic £60.50 a week in benefits or more - the same as someone who has paid National Insurance for years and was made redundant. He said that in future, benefits should be lower for those who have never paid into the system.
Many youngsters would stay on benefits for life unless the system was reformed, said Mr Field. "The recession calls for a totally new programme of welfare reform," he said.
Reader views (6)
£75bn and a 400,000 gain in jobs equates to about £185,000 per person. Great value for money this lot.
- Dan, Manchester, 22/02/2009 09:27
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Sighhhhhh!........I have discovered over the years, that no matter whom you vote for,.....The Governmant always gets in!
I think I'll go and lie down for a bit!
GERONIMO
- Geronimo, LONDON MIDDLESEX, 21/02/2009 03:09
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There is a bigger issue that has remained unaddressed for many years now , but that is becoming increasingly unsustainable . There is a significant dislocation between the large numbers of those who have voted Labour in three General Elections who pay no tax , and therefore make no contribution towards the cost of the very expensive policies for which they are voting , and many of the taxpayers who must pay the bill and have no choice about it even though they may never have voted Labour . Can this possibly be sustainable in a global economy where significant numbers of taxpayers , having found themselves outvoted by those benefitting from Labour's creation of a dependancy culture and a sort of Soviet client state , may move abroad . Once taxes become too great a burden , individuals and companies can move to a more competitive tax regime . This is partly , of course , why Gordon Brown is so desperate to clamp down on tax havens .
- Marcus J. Tyson, London, 20/02/2009 21:39
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Well thought out Ken from Brighton and then just get rid of Zac Goldsmith as he is only there because of who his dad was
- Anon, leicestershire, 20/02/2009 15:58
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What on earth is he doing in the Labour party? If, after the next election a Conservative government is elected, let's hope that he's offered and takes a Cabinet post. Same goes for Vince Cable.
- Ken, Brighton, East Sussex, 20/02/2009 13:45
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I have always thought that Frank Field made sense, this just confirms that view, but of course he'll be ignored as usual by the ruling plutocracy.
- Jim, London, 20/02/2009 11:34
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