Welfare reform will continue, despite slowdown

By Sunil Peck with Labour in Manchester

The government has vowed to press ahead with its plans for shifting disabled people off incapacity benefit (IB) and into work, despite the economic slowdown and rising unemployment.

Disability campaigners have claimed for some time that there are not enough suitable jobs for disabled people in the labour market, and that employers are reluctant to employ disabled people because of negative attitudes.

But speaking at a Citizens Advice fringe event at the Labour conference, work and pensions secretary James Purnell said the introduction of the employment support allowance, which disabled claimants will be given in return for undertaking job and skills training, would help transform society’s negative attitudes towards disabled people’s ability to do a job.

He defended the government’s plans to introduce what he called a conditional system – receiving benefits in return for proactively seeking work or training - saying that it would also reduce unemployment.

Referring to the introduction of IB by the Conservative government, he said: “When the Tories completely got rid of conditionality when unemployment reached three million in the early eighties, the view of the experts looking at that is that it made the increase in unemployment worse.”

He added that when governments in Scandinavia maintained or strengthened conditionality during times of rising unemployment, the evidence was that it led to a reduction in unemployment.