Welfare Reform Bill

This Bill will help put people who are out of work and on benefit, or who belong to other hard-to-reach groups such as single parents or drug abusers, on a path that will help us navigate through the present economic downturn and into the future. It does not want to leave anyone behind. In his 1942 report, Lord Beveridge, who for a time was the chairman of the corporation of Newton Aycliffe in my constituency, wrote that most people"““who have once gained the habit of work would rather work – in ways to which they are used – than be idle...But getting work...may involve a change of habits, doing something that is unfamiliar or leaving one's friends or making a painful effort of some other kind””." In these uncertain times, that statement is more true than ever. We must decide whose side we are on. Are we on the side of the many or the few? Are we on the side of those whose default setting is to believe that unemployment is a price worth paying, or of those who believe that it saps the lifeblood of society and is a scourge to our communities? Like the rest of the UK, Sedgefield went through that pain barrier in the 1980s. At the time, a total of 1.3 million people in this country had been out of work for 12 months or more—40 per cent. of all those on the dole. There were 5,500 people out of work in Sedgefield, and the unemployment rate in County Durham was just under 20 per cent. As I said, 40 per cent. of all those on the dole had been unemployed for 12 months or more. That was certainly the proportion in Sedgefield, although in some areas it was as high as 42 per cent. In my constituency, a total of 1,679 had been out of work for more than 12 months. Today, even as we are in the process of going into a global economic downturn, long-term unemployment in the area is 3.6 per cent. Only 65 people in Sedgefield have been out of work for more than 12 months. There is a reason for that, which takes me back to my main point. We need a Government who are on the side of the many, and who are proactive in how they deal with the welfare state. In the 1980s, whole communities were shut down and left to their own devices. The then Government saw fit to disguise the numbers out of work by moving people on to other benefits. In fact, staff at Department of Health and Social Security offices were employed to do just that, and millions of people ended up on incapacity benefit.