Tories attack Government's failure over 'vicious cycle' of worklessness

Published by Jon Land for 24dash.com in Communities and also in Central Government, Housing

The Tories stepped up their attack on the "failure" of Labour's welfare state, revealing today that worklessness has cost more than £340 billion in benefits since 1997.

Shadow work and pensions secretary Theresa May said unemployment had become a generational problem and a "vicious cycle" had emerged.

The cost of housing benefit paid to those on out-of-work benefits had totalled over £100 billion in the past 12 years, the Conservatives said.

More than £90 billion was paid out in incapacity benefits and another £90 billion was spent on income support. Other costs included jobseeker's allowance and council tax benefit.

In a speech on welfare reform to think tank Policy Exchange today, Mrs May will point to the "social consequences of this failure".

She will say: "There are communities in Britain where more than half of working age adults are out of work and dependent on benefits.

"Almost one in five children in the UK grow up in households dependent on out of work benefits.

"Worklessness has become a generational problem - passed from father to son, mother to daughter.

"Report after report has laid out the problems children growing up in workless households face: they are more likely to fail at school, become involved in criminal behaviour, develop addictions to drink and drugs and ultimately end up workless themselves. A vicious cycle has emerged."

Official figures yesterday showed that the number of households in the UK with no one over the age of 16 working has increased by 240,000 in the past year to 3.3 million.

The Office for National Statistics said the number of working-age people in workless households jumped by 500,000 to 4.8 million in the year to June.

The workless household rate increased by 1.1% to 16.9%, the highest since 1999 and the biggest year-on-year increase since Labour came to power in 1997.

The Conservatives seized on the figures, saying Labour had deserted millions stuck in a "cycle of worklessness".

Mrs May will say: "The tragedy is that we're talking about real people here, people who feel they have no future, who can't imagine getting a job, who don't know anyone else with a job.

"Recession or no recession, it makes no difference to their lives. They have been trapped on benefits for as long as they can remember and they can't see any chance of getting out."

Employment Minister Jim Knight said: "This is utter hypocrisy from the Tories who abandoned people in every recession and deliberately pushed unemployed people on to sickness benefits.

"That neglect meant that unemployment stayed over two million for almost all the 1980s pushing up the bills of unemployment too.

"Labour's programme of welfare reform cut the number of people on incapacity benefit after they trebled between 1980 and 2000 as a result of Tory policies.

"And the Tories would abandon people again today. If Theresa May wants to get serious about tackling worklessness she should stop opposing our £5bn programme to deliver real jobs and help people into work.

"And she should admit now to the shocking damage the Tories did when they trebled the number of people on incapacity benefit.

"Just as the Tories turned their backs on people in the last recessions - so too today, they oppose Labour's investment to help people now when they need it most."