Job-seekers with a track record of work would get higher benefits than “people who have just turned up in this country”, Labour said today.
Shadow work and pensions secretary Rachel Reeves moved to toughen the party’s image on welfare and migrants ahead of her first big speech.
“People who have worked hard all their lives and then lose their job should be entitled to more support than people who have just turned up in this country and haven’t contributed to the system,” she said.
People who lack basic English, maths and computing skills could be stripped of benefits unless they take up training, she said. Under Labour all new claimants of Jobseeker’s Allowance would be tested on skills within six weeks, compared with current Government plans to test only young people.
“These are tough policies,” she told BBC radio ahead. “We are requiring people to do something for their benefits.
“But they are also fair, because they are giving the support to people to get back to work.”
Labour’s idea of paying higher benefits to people who have worked was revealed last year by the Standard. “I think it is right that the welfare state should be based on the contributory principle,” said Ms Reeves. “If you pay something in, you deserve a little more out of the system.”
Two senior Government ministers announced plans to deny jobless immigrants of housing benefits. Home Secretary Theresa May and Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith said the measure would apply from April.
Writing in the Daily Mail the Cabinet ministers said: “No longer can people come here from abroad and expect to get something for nothing.”
Accusing Labour of a “shameful betrayal” of British workers, they highlighted figures showing the number of Britons in jobs fell by 413,000 between 2005 and 2010, while the number of working foreigners increased by 736,000.
“For years Labour presided over a labour market where the number of foreign people in jobs rocketed to record levels - while thousands of British workers were left on the sidelines, facing the prospect of long-term unemployment,” they said.
