Briefing from the Prime Minister’s Spokesman on: Welfare Reform, road haulage, party funding, northern rock and misc
Welfare Reform
The Prime Minister’s Spokesman began by giving details of the welfare reform section of the Prime Minister’s speech to the CBI National Conference. The idea he said was the intention to move towards a system whereby people who were able to work but were on benefits should be engaged in some form of training, in order to prepare them for work. There were a number of measures being announced this morning that moved the system in that general direction. Firstly, there would be a new skills health-check, for jobseekers allowance (JSA) claimants and new incapacity benefit (IB) claimants, six months after they had started claiming. This would be a new mandatory skills check. For those on jobseekers allowance, the Government would pilot making any subsequent training mandatory for claimants after six months, so that tougher conditionality was in place in order to encourage training in relation to JSA and IB.
The Government would also reform the 16 hours rule, which currently meant people on JSA and IB lost benefit entitlement if they were studying or training for more than 16 hours per week. This would be reformed in order to remove the disincentive built in for people on benefit to train.
The Government would also make some reforms to incapacity benefit. As well as the mandatory skills check for new claimants of incapacity benefit, the Government would also role out the Pathways To Work programme, a programme of intensive support for new recipients of incapacity benefit. This would be rolled out to existing claimants as well, so there would be a new requirement on those receiving incapacity benefit, under the age of 25, to go into the Pathways To Work programme and for example be required to attend work-focussed interviews.
In an environment where the Government knew that the number of unskilled jobs available in Britain was going to fall dramatically over the next decade, it was therefore important that those people who were on benefit, were given much stronger incentives and support to get the skills necessary to prepare for the workforce of the next decade.
Asked what would happen if people on JSA did not take up mandatory training, the PMS replied that people would lose their benefit entitlement. It would be a requirement of receiving JSA in these pilot schemes, that people would move on to mandatory training. Asked where the five and a half million unskilled jobs would disappear from, the PMS said that there had been a report that was published in the PBR 2006 by Lord Leitch, which gave a very detailed analysis of likely trends in employment and the skills composition of the workforce up to 2020. The PMS said that this would be the best place to look for the detailed analysis people were looking for.
Asked how long the pilot schemes would last for and was the intention to role it out on a national scale, the PMS replied that clearly the Government would not be piloting something if there wasn’t a general desire to move in that direction. It would be a big step and it was a complex area. Every individual had different needs so there might be different ways in which it could be done. The point of the pilots was to examine how this might be done in practice. The PMS added that it was actually quite common in this area to pilot schemes of this kind, before they are rolled out nationwide.
Asked when the pilots were starting, the PMS replied that people should check with DWP, but the Government would try to do it as soon as it was practical.
Road Haulage
Asked if the Prime Minister had anything extra to say to road haulers and if not was he ready and planning for blockades, the PMS replied that it was important to bear in mind that even after the planned changes in fuel duty over the next year or so, by 2010, the main fuel duty rate would be 11% lower in real terms than they were in 1999. It was also important to recognise that the planned increase in fuel duty from next April was part of a revenue neutral budget package that involved cuts in the basic rate of income tax. Asked if there were contingency plans for blockades, the PMS said that the Government made contingency plans about all sorts of things all of the time.
Party Funding
Asked repeatedly on the subject of Labour Party funding, the PMS advised people that it would be best to direct such enquiries to the Labour Party.
Northern Rock
Asked about the proposed Virgin deal to buy Northern Rock, the PMS said that as the Treasury had been making clear, this was still an early point in the process. In any case, Northern Rock - not the Treasury, was leading on this, negotiations were still taking place and it was not the confirmed bid. The PMS said the Chancellor had set out three priorities for any resolution of the Northern Rock issue in his statement last week. Firstly, the need to protect the taxpayer, secondly, the need to protect depositors and thirdly, the need to ensure wider financial stability. The Treasury had been making clear that they backed the Virgin bid on the grounds that it met those three principles, but the PMS stressed that it was an ongoing commercial negotiation that was still at an early stage.
Misc
Put that the Independent had carried a story on Saturday that the Government had been offered a rainforest in Guyana and would it be taking up the offer, the PMS asked to get back to people on the subject.
Asked if the Government was still committed to the amendment on gay hate crime in the immigration bill, the PMS replied that he was not aware of any particular issue with it, but he would have to check.
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