Party takes hardline position on welfare, with proposal to stop benefits for six months if job offer is refused
Labour has said it would withdraw benefit from the unemployed for six months if they refused a government-provided job guarantee after completing a placement on the work programme.
The proposals, hardening the party's position on welfare, were set out in a speech by the shadow work and pensions secretary, Liam Byrne, and in a Smith Institute pamphlet written by the shadow employment minister, Stephen Timms.
Byrne said: "The right to work must carry with it a responsibility to work.
"The truth is that the government is actually weakening the obligation to work. It is perfectly possible under the government's arrangements to sail through two years of the work programme and straight back on to the dole on the other side. We don't think that is good enough."
The work programme – whereby private contractors are paid by results if they help jobseekers find work – has faced criticisms. There are fears that its targets are unrealistic during the downturn, too many jobs found are part-time, and there has been allegations of fraud at one provider, A4e.
But Byrne said: "We don't think that if you can work, you should be allowed to live a life on benefits. So, as we explore new ways to create jobs, we'll look at new ways to enforce the responsibility to work if you can. If you can work, you should."
In his pamphlet, Timms proposes that anyone coming to the end of their work programme attachment, and who had not been successfully placed into employment, would receive an offer – a job guarantee.
There could be benefit sanctions if someone refused all the options offered.
He writes that legislation could be altered so that a jobseeker could be offered either six months on a job or six months without benefit.
He writes: "We need to instil a culture of work in every community in the country. Our view is that people in receipt of benefits have a responsibility to work hard to find a job, and to take up the opportunity of work when it is offered.
"Labour's approach reflects the party's conviction – drawn from a long-term commitment to the goal of full employment – that people have a right to work, and the responsibility to do so when they are able. We will be tough on those who seek to shirk their responsibility."
Labour's tough stance follows a government U-turn over its work experience programme, when it bowed to pressure from big business and dropped benefit sanctions against young people on the scheme.
Businesses had threatened to withdraw from the scheme unless the government dropped plans to penalise young people who dropped out of the eight-week programme by withdrawing their jobseeker's allowance for two weeks.