Britse verkiezingen: alle grote partijen willen meer dwangarbeid

It is a disgrace that the three main political parties (and UKIP) support workfare and sanctions. This consensus has allowed the introduction of policies that are causing ill health, hunger, homelessness and deaths. All three parties have some responsibility for this and they all have questions to answer. (…) Shamefully it was the last Labour government who introduced workfare with the Welfare Reform Act of 2009. Under Labour’s Flexible New Deal thousands of hours of unpaid work was handed out to businesses like Primark and claimants were forced to work without pay in hospitals and local councils. The last Labour government also introduced the hated Work Capability Assessment and extended benefit sanctions to include disabled people and lone parents. Over the last five years there has been a complete absence of any opposition from Labour to any of the workfare and sanctions policies introduced by the coalition. Labour’s support for the retrospective Workfare Bill was particularly disgraceful. (…) The Liberal Democrats have supported every workfare and sanctions policy introduced by the Conservatives over the last five years (including the retrospective Workfare Bill) and must share responsibility for the ill health, hunger, homelessness and deaths caused by coalition policies. (…) The last five years of Conservative-led government have seen a proliferation of workfare schemes and a huge increase in the number of benefit sanctions. Claimants can now be forced to work for 6 months without pay. Benefits can now be stopped for up to 3 years. Predictably these policies are having disastrous consequences. With the introduction of Universal Credit the Conservatives are seeking to extend workfare and sanctions to low paid part-time and self-employed workers. Their manifesto promises more of the same, with an unspecified £12 billion of cuts to the welfare budget. (..) This time around it seems that UKIP have decided that workfare is no longer a vote winner and have disappeared the policy from their manifesto. It should be noted though that workfare was endorsed at their last conference and is still listed on their website as one of the reasons to vote for UKIP.

Boycott Workfare in Unanswered Question Time: Break the Election Silence on Workfare and Sanctions (BW)