In My View
Posted by Robert Walter, MP for North Dorset, at 09:42, Thu 20 December 2007:
IN MY VIEW
As we approach Christmas it is a time to reflect on those less well off than most of us. We of course think of those living in poverty around the world. Of course those whose misery is compounded by war and unrest must be on all or minds. There are still too many areas of this planet plagued by strife and famine. Too many people live in such abject unimaginable misery.
But let us for a moment consider those closer to home whose lives can be pretty miserable too. For those facing unemployment, sickness, incapacity, relationship breakdown leading to a loss of income for a now single parent, our welfare system has always, in recent times, provided a way of keeping the wolf from the door. That must not and should not ever change.
No one benefits from being on benefits. For some there is no option. For some disability makes it impossible to work. For single parents with young, pre-school children, parenthood is a full-time job. For those people, our benefits system is a must. The help the state provides is a lifeline. That must never change.
But for those who can work, in whatever capacity, the story should be very different. No one’s life is enhanced by being paid to sit at home and do nothing. The welfare state must, for most of us, be a safety net and not a way of life. But equally no one benefits from a situation where benefits become a way of life for those who could make a return to work. We do no one any favours if our welfare system leaves them with little incentive or pressure to return to work.
But I do think that the issue of worklessness can be treated in too simplistic a way. For every person who’s decided a life on benefits is what they want, there are far more who have been through a period of trauma in their lives and lack the confidence or the support needed to get back into the workplace.
Like the very large number of people on incapacity benefit who have suffered mental health problems and need well structured, gentle support back into the workplace. Or the people for whom the job they have always done has disappeared for good, and they simply don’t know which way to turn to find an alternative.
That said we have the absurd situation where over the past decade some one and a half million people and potentially many more – depending on which of the various statistics you believe – have moved to Britain to work, despite the fact that we have nearly five million people still claiming out of work benefits. We even have higher youth unemployment today than a decade ago, despite the billions spent on the New Deal to try and get them back to work.
But that’s enough of politics. Its Christmas and I would like to wish every one of my constituents a very happy Christmas holiday. And let us all look forward to more peaceful world in 2008.
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