Labour guarantees

 

Labour will act to deal with the Coalition's cost-of-living crisis.

 

With your support we will:

• Freeze gas and electricity bills until 2017 and reform the energy market to prevent customers being ripped off again in the future
• Expand free childcare to 25 hours for three- and four-year-olds of working parents
• Get 200,000 homes a year built by 2020
• Get the next generation into work with our compulsory jobs guarantee for young people who have been unemployed for a year or more

Read Glenis Willmott on Europe's role in beating the cost-of-living crisis by clicking here.

It really is this simple

More on Labour's Jobs Guarantee

* Bank bonuses are on the rise (again) and the wealthiest in our country are about to be given another tax cut by David Cameron.  But young people, who have been hit hardest by the recession, are being left behind. For tens of thousands of young people who cannot find work this is no recovery at all. Under David Cameron’s government the number of young people stuck on the dole for more than a year has doubled.

* Labour is determined to ensure that this is a recovery for the many, not just a few at the top. We cannot afford to be wasting the talents of thousands of young people and leaving them stuck on the dole for years on end. It scars their lives, weakens our economy and adds billions to the social security bill. We need to get young people and the long term unemployed off benefits and into work so we can all earn our way out of the cost of living crisis.

* The next Labour government will guarantee jobs for all young people on unemployment benefit for a year, and all adults aged 25 or over on unemployment benefit for two years. It will be a tough contract – those who can work will be required to take up the jobs on offer or lose their benefits. 

* This is a fully funded commitment, paid for by repeating Labour’s successful tax on bank bonuses at the start of the next Parliament and restricting pensions tax relief for people earning over £150,000 to the same rate as basic rate taxpayers.  After the global banking crisis and with bank bonuses soaring again this year, it’s fair to pay for our jobs plan by repeating Labour’s tax on bank bonuses.

If implemented today, Labour's guarantee would create 4,265 jobs for young people in the East Midlands alone.

It's common sense and simple fair play.  Irresponsible finance brought this country to its knees and crushed the hopes of an entire generation.  The financial sector has done nothing to put its house in order, so let's tax banker bonuses to fund jobs for young people.

Helping people into work

The Coalition's failure to tackle long-term unemployment, low pay, and insecure jobs is adding to social security bills as well as undermining the strength and future prosperity of our economy.

Nearly one in ten people claiming Jobseekers Allowance (JSA) lack basic literacy skills, and over one in ten lack basic numeracy skills. The lack of IT skills is even more of a problem, with over half unable to complete basic word-processing and spreadsheet tasks, and nearly half lacking even basic email skills.[i] Poor English, Maths and IT skills often hold people back from getting jobs, or trap them in a cycle between a low paid and insecure job and claiming benefits.

Under the Tories many job seekers only take up literacy and numeracy training three years after they first make a claim for benefits.

 Last month Labour's Shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, Rachel Reeves MP announced that a Labour government would introduce a Basic Skills Test to tackle long-term unemployment and low earnings.

 

 

Labour would make sure that all new JSA claimants are assessed within six weeks of a claim – those who need it would be offered training which they’ll be required to take up or lose their benefits. 

To get the long term unemployed back to work Labour would introduce a Compulsory Jobs Guarantee for young people out of work and claiming JSA for over a year, funded by a repeat of the bankers’ bonus tax, and those claiming JSA for two years or more, funded by restricting pensions tax relief for very high earners. Those who refuse to take jobs under the jobs guarantee would lose their benefits.

Labour’s Compulsory Jobs Guarantee and Basic Skills Test are key parts of Labour’s plan to earn our way out of the cost-of-living crisis by getting more people into work and helping them to earn a decent standard of living.

Youth unemployment update

I have posted as a separate page - click on the link on the right of the blog - Professor Sue Maguire's notes from her talk to the Branch last Tuesday.  As ever, enthralling and not a little terrifying. 

Another Tory failure

Another day, another fiasco.  Simple probability means that doing absolutely nothing would get better results.  No wonder the Tories haven't kicked the idea of a coalition with UKIP into the long grass.  They desperately need the intellectual input.

And how dare Dave try and usurp FDR's glory?  The Great Depression was ended by properly-paid state-sponsored jobs in infrastructure, jobs which taught real skills - not stacking shelves in the Pound Shop just to cling on to your benefit!

Creating new jobs

Follow this link to learn what the Labour City Council are doing about the scourge of youth unemployment.

What are Tory Harborough and the Tory County Council doing?  Pretending the problem doesn't exist and cutting services wherever possible.  Scandalous.

Apprenticeships and the Minimum Wage

This is the first of two articles our branch secretary David Fish has contributed to the blog.

"A friend of mind through church is surviving on benefits and casual work.  He is receiving travel costs and free teaching in English and it’s amazing how he has improved.  He has done some ‘voluntary’ work in industry. Could it be making balloons? I will find out.

"After two months the factory are pleased and so offer him an apprenticeship for the job he can already do. He will receive £2.50 an hour, £100 a week and lose benefits.  In addition he will have to pay £25 a week travel.

"The company will receive £1500 for having an apprentice.

"I think that the apprentice system is a way of undermining the minimum wage."

Thanks, David. 

What do we think about the latest wheeze for massaging youth unemployment figures, the ominously-named National Citizen Service?