There are 1 million people out of work at a time when there is an abundance of jobs on offer with many businesses desperate to recruit more staff. There are also 6 million people of working age excluding students  not looking for work.
The government is now turning its attention to these issues. It is a much better idea to spend some time and money on helping UK citizens into the jobs on offer than constantly looking to increase the number of permits for economic migrants to come and fill the vacancies.
The Welfare Secretary is planning to re introduce the checks and interviews that were in place before covid for those on out of work benefits. Under Universal credit you should always be better off taking the job, so more help, support and encouragement from the Jobs service should help.
We also need to consider how many of those permanently on benefits might like the opportunity to get some work. There is clearly a lot of unused talent still in the UK which we need to train, support and help into employment. It can bring them more money and more interesting lives, and it can bring savings for the taxpayer.
June 13, 2022
In addition to the numbers quoted in the first paragraph there are also many involved in the black economy. Sometimes those involved in the black economy may also be included in those quoted numbers.
As for checks and interviews by Job Centre staff I am not sure how effective these are. You read reports of determined types who still claim benefits while also working. As is the case with disability benefits you also read of people who are unduly harassed by Job Centre staff. Working at a Job Centre sounds a rather dispiriting task and you do wonder how much enthusiasm those involved can and do bring to the task.
Looking back half a century or more there is a marked change of attitude to signing on. For some it is now a permanent lifestyle. Any sense of shame about drawing the dole which used to be there in the old days has mostly disappeared.
June 13, 2022
Pubs and restaurants are closing on a huge scale because the staff that they need – skilled cooks notably – have largely returned to their homelands in the European Union having been told that they are unwelcome here.
That and the weakening of Sterling against their own currencies means that farms can no longer get the seasonal workers that they did prior to your brexit.
A few tabloid headlines won’t fix this.
You have blighted this once-fine country.
June 13, 2022
Complete nonsense NHL
Stop believing everything you read in the Guardian.
June 14, 2022
No EU workers were told that they were ‘unwelcome here’. It is far more likely that they went home last year as a result of the narrative that we were ‘COVID Central in Europe’ and while the government was doing its utomost to destroy the hospitality and air-travel sectors.
My locals? The one that went bust has reopened under new owners, employing British staff, and the other two are coping.
GBP against the euro? Pretty stable, last time I loooked.
Try harder!
June 14, 2022
As far as I am concerned refugees, immigrants , EU are all welcome emotionally, but you cannot run a country on emotion. Reduce it to a small personal perspective . People with houses which have 3 bedrooms in a small suburban area. Say currently they are living the traditional 2.2 families . That is, all the bedrooms are full. Now add to it 2 others which will cause chaos for that family , now multiply that by all the houses in any urban suburban area and what do you get overcrowding every where , all services over burdened , institutions falling part, excess criminality due to an impossible task for the police to handle, overcrowding in prisons. Areas of squalor, reduced growth and heaviness on the state which will eventually fall apart !
June 14, 2022
Brexit is a great idea but also a big project. Problem is that there is no real leadership in government to implement it.
June 14, 2022
Goes back to question, how do we attract higher calibre leaders to Parliament?
June 13, 2022
Peter
Fully agree with your last paragraph. State support should be a safety net not a life style choice.
June 14, 2022
‘State support should be a safety net not a life style choice’
– The problem isn’t just socialism (huge problem) but mainly that we have, as a Western World as a whole, turned our back on our Judaeo-Christian / best of our Greco-Roman heritage.
Politics can only do so much (if politicians over-do it, then they just become over-controlling and unhelpful in the long run. Why the Trumps of this world seem like a good idea but not). Real change takes place through cultural values that are established through Education, The Arts, Media, The Church and so on. Conservatism has to be a movement that embraces the Culture not just politics (as Conservative-minded leaders 250 would have seen things too more-a-less).
June 14, 2022
And people might say I am ‘lecturing’ / ‘preaching’. Who cares when Western Culture is in serious trouble and crumbling all around us in one way or another. But it does NOT need to be like that. The opposite.
June 13, 2022
….âso more help, support and encouragement from the Jobs service should help…â
So long as this not code for bringing in consultants from the large accountancy firms on ÂŁ1000 per day to tell ministers and officials what they want to hear.
That only helps the big accountancy firms and underlying problems will never be addressed that way. It is just private sector boosting income by feeding off issues the government and the public sector itself should put right.
June 13, 2022
Good morning.
Difficult subject this as there are people who have real needs and those that clearly are gaming the system. Perhaps a benefits taper system whereby the longer you remain out of work the less you recieve. But I also believe that business employing cheap foreign labour should be discouraged.
The Welfare State should be a means of support for those who suddenly find themselves on hard time, not an alternative form of lifestyle.
June 13, 2022
Businesses should be ignored when they ask to employ foreign labour. If we have 7m not working then the labour force exists. As you say, incentivise coming off benefits.
June 13, 2022
The problem here is the still-feudal English culture of employment, where it appears that for the Tories, work per se should be humiliating and low paid simply to teach employed people to Know Their Place. It’s completely different in e.g. Germany and perhaps why their productivity is rather better.
You can’t blame people for not wanting to be made to crawl as far as they might.
June 13, 2022
nonsense….inferiority complex?
June 13, 2022
More Marxist twaddle from NHL
June 13, 2022
@ Mark B “….not an alternative form of lifestyle” – but now mortgages are available to welfare recipients is that not inevitable?
We saw Margaret’s right to buy scheme as a worthy means of helping those who were helping themselves: Boris’s scheme is generously helping those who are already being helped and are being set up to need more help. He does not think we notice the difference.
June 17, 2022
Form 57-All part of the Globalist Plan.
June 13, 2022
Mark B
Was only talking about a sliding scale starting after 3 months on the morning dog walk. How can Ministers and Heads of Departments justify paying out benefits to 2nd- 3rd generation family unemployed?
June 13, 2022
Employing people who do not want to work is a quick route to stress and bankruptcy. The people who do not want to work would probably turn to crime if their benefits were cut, if they haven’t already. I don’t know what the solution could be, but are they training the next generation to be benefit reliant too? Maybe that is where we should concentrate?
June 13, 2022
with the savings in benefits we could build more prisons…..just saying ….sarc.
June 14, 2022
Dear Mr Taking
Being in debt used to be an imprisonable offence. Now debt has turned into benefits.
Folk were more thoughtful and careful about managing their affairs and responsibilities when being careless led to unwanted consequences: Debtors’ prison was harsh.
Now some are taking rewards from a careless system of misguided fairness for life.
June 13, 2022
+Agree
If I remember rightly the old Parish Relief system only gave according to need and entitlement of birth etc.
What every parish was terrified of was becoming responsible for the welfare of strangers (!).
Even in the 70s DHSS ( or whatever department) would tell claimants to put new buttons on a coat rather than claim for a new one ( true story).
Now people work in horrible conditions just to subsist and support strangers.
June 13, 2022
Parish Relief system allowed for transport out of Parish to the one the person originated from.
Dinghy arrivals?
June 13, 2022
Why is it that foreign work visa or foreign student visa can claim UK benefits ?
June 13, 2022
All the time you have a benefit system that people are paid nearly as much in some cases more than actually going out and getting a job for the minimum wage then as I have heard so many times during my working life “its not worth getting out of bed for”
Some people ask “what is the attraction to risk so much to come to the UK”?
Very few politicians understand the responsibility and stress of employing people especially when you are a small installation, services business. It’s not worth the hassle.
June 13, 2022
Last sentence spot on for all SMEs and interviewing people from the Job Centre who have to be seen to try and get a job to retain their benefits, a nightmare of no shows and for businesses not large enough to support an HR professional Employment Law, as you say not worthwhile.
The other thing is cultural, people from elsewhere are âhappy to take entry level jobs and from the old eastern part of Europe really prepared to bend their backs.
We have a lazy workforce content with and supported by a soft social security scheme with demotivated people and probably under resourced, in Job Centres prepared to do the minimum, certainly not to drive people back to work.
Where there is genuine desire to work, and I know a family with two kids where wife works as a dinner lady and he could not work through no fault of his own, he now wants to but needs more than is being offered to offset the instant loss of universal credit. Equally should any job be temporary getting the universal credit back is a lengthy bureaucratic nightmare.
Sir JR is correct, it should be better to spend some money getting people back into work. Unfortunately in my experience having done some work in this area Government hasnât a clue what actually to do that will work and comes up with the same previously failed schemes outsourced to companies who quickly find the money being paid and the numbers required make the contracts not worthwhile or achievable.
The only thing that would work is to cut benefit making economic hardship the driver (hence the migrants) but a bleeding heart society quickly using figures of child poverty, pictures of food banks etc make that politically impossible.
June 13, 2022
You are forced to come to the UK to claim benefits & work illegally to repay the traffickersâŠ.but if you stay in France and register youâll be issued an ID and can only work legally
June 13, 2022
What’s the difference between a dependent benefit claimant and an unproductive yet dependent unionised State employee who is employed to sit at home all week shuffling pieces of paper?
June 13, 2022
@ DOM – one is mainly only harm to him/her self, the other is routinely able to harm us all?
June 13, 2022
+100
I suppose the claimant might use the phone or PC occasionally to sort out benefits etc?
June 13, 2022
Dom, a lot of the work that people do at home is paid by extra fees demanded from the public such as charges for probate, charges for driving licences, charges for passports, the costs of all those public sector employees are thus covered by the remuneration of that department, the question is how productive are they, do they cover all the overheads, is their productivity checked individually by the amounts billed for the work they do? Or do you have a specific set of underemployed home workers in mind?
June 13, 2022
DOM :
The difference is that many of the latter, because of their position and power, can and do cause enormous damage to the country.
June 13, 2022
Simple – one of them doing not a lot can look forward to one day being in receipt of guaranteed gold-plated pension.
June 13, 2022
As they used to say in the Soviet Union:We pretend to work and they pretend to pay us.
The fiat currency illusion….which Russia is going to destroy through backing it’s currency with it’s resources.
June 13, 2022
The difference is the State employee will get a large gold plated pension too! Paid for by taxpayers many of whom with get very little pension at all beyond the state one.
June 17, 2022
DOM – ……..shuffling pieces of paper and doing NOTHING.
June 13, 2022
Some years ago, men tended to generate enough income to enable wives to spend more time looking after their own children. Many women now perform other valuable roles and generate higher resources.
However, six million folk of working age âout of workâ is a vast potential of its own.
Perhaps many have created enough resource to live comfortably on what they already have, and many others may want to work but are unable. Enabling those who would prefer to work, rather than importing populations from outside the UK is evidently more sensible.
The Govt has been far too lax and late in acting. Good decisions should be taken early, not activated by the increasing burden of neglect, inertia and reckless waste.
June 13, 2022
Bloke, I’d feel there are a lot of British women who have to work certainly from the middle-class majority, they don’t have their civic leaders advising them on all the benefits on offer and the miriad of ways to top them up like ADHD (I know a previous ADHD disability claimant whose Father gave up work to care for him who is now an HGV driver but had full mobility allowance until he was 19!). Furlough did a lot of damage to the universal credit top up system as people suddenly found they could do less for more after not realising that before.
June 13, 2022
Indeed we have more (especially women) working, higher retirement ages, better health, huge technology improvements especially in manufacturing and communications and other huge efficiencies and yet many couples still cannot afford to buy a place to live, get to see a GP, or have the hip/knee op they need. Nor even afford to fill up their car to get to work!
The reasons for this are simple. The government has grown from under 10% of GDP to nearly 50% and most of this is wasted (much spend doing positive economic damage). On top of this we have endless daft regulations, daft employment laws, OTT building regulations, restrictive planning, idiotic extended lockdowns, open door low wage immigration, the net zero expensive unreliable energy religion, the government road blocking… as usual the problem is government most of it is entirely parasitic and does huge net damage.
Much talk of Boris stepping back on the war on Co2 lunacy but no real positive action in this direction. Socialist dope Gove (who even wanted VAT on school fees) has just absurdly given us:-
Michael Gove’s block on gas exploration sends Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s frackers ‘apoplectic’
Energy giant Ineos is refused planning permission for trying to build a ten foot fence.
June 13, 2022
People see benefits as a career AND are genuinely afraid of leaving the house and going to work. Unless there is a big benefit in coming off benefits they wonât do it.
The problem is the bottom end of the labour market has been undercut by mass immigration. Now you have a secondary problem caused by this massive market distortion.
June 13, 2022
You should have heard the buzz of hot tubs being switched back on, diesel estates being revved and idled and plans for purchase of latest PlayStation etc when Sunakâs âwindfall lump sumâ for those already in receipt, was announced.
âHelp for Hottubsâ âPounds for Playstationsâ. Thereâs more bunce a-coming.
Oh the plansâŠwhile the rest of us turn down the dials and try to build up credit for winter.
They have turned us into a nation of ants and grasshoppers.
June 13, 2022
And what does ultra-socialist Boris do ? Proposes that those on welfare can use their handouts as an investment vehicle in the property market.
He has made it a big BIG financial mistake for me to produce both a doctor and a research chemist for this country.
June 13, 2022
The benefit recipients are behaving rationally given the tax/benefit system that pertains. Why work eight hours a day & travel for perhaps two more only to be circa ÂŁ2-ÂŁ5 a day better off after lunch and commuting costs. Even less if you need childcare! Much easier to save money by using you time to shop and cook better, do DIY and help your mate for a bit of cash in hand or something. So they do this! It is the system that is wrong.
June 13, 2022
Yes amazing isn’t it that so many businesses now are looking for staff but cannot get them, when the taxpayer in the form of the Government is paying out ÂŁbillions each year to millions of people who do not work, or do not want to work.
So the question should be, is our benefit and taxation system fit for purpose ?
Does it really encourage people to work, or does it actually penalise those who can, but choose not to.
When I left school way back in the mid 1960’s not a single person from my year failed to get a job and retain one, yes there may have been movement from one job to another until a suitable one was found, but not one school leaver was out of work.
Perhaps the reason was simple, if you wanted to live with any form of independence or self control you simply had to get a job, as there were very few benefits of any sort available, let alone food banks, help with power bills, council tax, rent, and getting benefits whilst in work simply was not even dreamed of.
Not for one minute am I suggesting that those who not able to work through no fault of their own should be denied help, there should always be a safety net, but surely we now have far, far too much Government interference in all aspects of our lives, to such a degree now we have people who are getting sizeable benefits whilst working, paying taxes themselves to help fund the scheme, or limiting the hours that they work for financial gain, as that seems somewhat stupid.
Let us get back to a far more simple and less complex tax and benefit system that rewards those who work and are fit to work, whilst looking after those who simply cannot.
June 13, 2022
I wonder how many of the 1 million who are out of work and the 6 million of working age, who aren’t seeking work, have depression and/or anxiety syndrome caused by the Government’s disgraceful fear-based PsyOps campaign to gain compliance with the Covid lockdowns/restrictions which Johnson KNEW weren’t necessary?
Sadly, once confidence has gone and someone has succumbed to depression and/or anxiety they seldom make a full recovery. Obviously people should be encouraged to work but it means a lifestyle change and is a big step for someone who has been out of work/receiving benefits for a long time.
It needs a combination of support, carrot and stick. And that applies to the potential employers as well as the potential employees.
Business must not be allowed to continually ship in workers.
June 13, 2022
Fully agree
June 13, 2022
Good to see the Treasury meeting their clear aim of assisting the UK to negative growth the last quarter. How could you ever doubt it JR? We have people who appear to be deliberately sabotaging the UK economyâŠ.
Zorro
June 13, 2022
With my circumstances, if I was on the Universal Credit gravy train, I would take home ÂŁ36,000 per year performing a minimum wage job close to my home, regular shifts and no commute. On top of that I would save ÂŁ30 per week on school meals (ÂŁ1,500), not pay for prescriptions and qualify for an additional ÂŁ650 to be thrown at me for energy support. That is the equivalent of ÂŁ50K per year before tax and NI and it is guaranteed and protected by the worthies who say benefit claimants do not have enough so it will go up as inflation goes up. My private sector salary is not protected in this way.
ÂŁ50K is deemed to rich to qualify for full Child benefit so the Universal Credit system would make me rich. Why would I wish to pursue a time consuming, pressure filled management role for the same money? Oh yes, because I can’t get on the benefits merry go round, having take the responsible route when young.
June 13, 2022
The number on that gravy train is Catch 22
June 14, 2022
NS, for years I’ve thought this benefit train would stop and hit the buffers, it is one of the worst consequences of the ‘right to buy’ paying sky-high rents to support the buy-to-let mortgages. I know people on that train, one of them on the ride of their lives for thirty-five years, well-spaced out children’s births, no fathers on the birth certificates, only problem was she thought she’d retire at 60 and didn’t have another child late enough to take her through to 66. Now we’re offering more and more every year because of the ‘they can’t feed the kids’.
I don’t mind people part-owning a home and renting the other half with agreements on the maintenance but we shouldn’t give away properties that people have been living in off housing benefits for the past 40 years. It’s a double smack in the face to workers who are contributing. When these council houses get bought at massive discounts for ÂŁ20,000 or ÂŁ30,000 the maintenance often isn’t done, the gardens go to wrack and ruin, the outside paintwork doesn’t get redone, and the street starts to look shabby because of their lack of care. At least when council or HA there was a little monitoring.
June 13, 2022
Our housing costs are too high, therefore rates of benefit need to be high – chicken and egg but it is the amount of money available to everyone especially benefits claimants) that is driving up housing costs. Government interference in a market send the market to cr*p again.
June 16, 2022
NS this is why I disagreed with selling council housing stock off cheap, these homes were in many cases half the rental costs of private rentals.
June 13, 2022
There are also 6 million people of working age excluding students not looking for work.
Aren’t they lucky, there is more to life than work.
I feel sorry for women, whose raison d’etre is now to be flogged to death as a careerist or minimum wage lackey as well as a mother in the name of equality. Financial imperatives have taken the choice away so there is no advantage in being a working mother, it is now a necessary evil to keep up with the neighbours (many of whom will be on full benefits).
June 14, 2022
NS – the other issue is too many take on several credit cards with 0 rates interest at first, no equity or substance behind them, whack up ÂŁ20k of debt struggle to pay then fold into iva. Who pays for all that failure?
June 13, 2022
I once heard someone describing certain types as ânot being able to read or write very well, but they know their way round the benefits systems!â
If itâs free, âIâll have some of that!â
Not everyone is honourable! Many will take whatâs available. So I think that changes need to made⊠the first change is, how can new arrivals to the country be entitled? Much as, why is free healthcare given to anyone who turns up? The system is flawed. That needs changing as well as âencouragingâ people back to work.
Letâs hope some common sense is used for that.
June 13, 2022
Let’s talk about ‘them’: UC is too high.
Let’s talk about me: although retired, a few days ago I was approached about doing a project management job. Taking it, I would have my new income taxed at a marginal rate of 40%, and have to pay a lot in NI, and have substantial driving costs to meet as well. All in all, I would, from that employment, be on the same, after tax, as a bottle-washer at the local pub.
Let’s talk about others: I now have the richer portion of my extended family wrapping-up work by the time they’re 60. Why? Because of the lifetime pensions limit. I gather this also acts as a disincentive for our doctors.
So, reduce benefits and reduce taxes; it’s what a Conservative government would do.
June 13, 2022
Sir,
ALL so called benefits must be time limited to THREE months to make people actively get work and stop the career layabouts. So many timed I have heard the statement â my father and grandfather never worked, why should I!â This must be eradicated totally.
Sometimes I have found men drawing benefit and working the black economy , as you will well know! It must be made harder to stay on our money. I would be ruthless in this respect, it must be stopped.
June 13, 2022
Good to see the Russian economy collapsing with industrial growth of 4% in the last quarter, the rouble higher than in February, practically self sufficient in food and agricultural production, and increasing oil production and revenues, whilst the UK economy, on the back of sanctions, soars with negative growth, out of control inflation, and food production issues whilst gambling in our âwildingâ meadows.
Can the muppets leave or be removed?
Slava Pfeffel!!
zorro
June 13, 2022
As already mentioned it is a difficult subject only in terms of not penalising those who are genuinely in need of state help.
The British workforce has been labelled as lazy and stupid by many in the upper echelons as an excuse for importing millions into the country.
On speaking to my former MP way back in the early 2000’s he said we have been a victim of our own success in a way. By being a successful economy/nation as a whole, then of course many want to come here. I’m not quite sure how a lazy and stupid people manage to build something everyone else wants a piece of!!!
I’ve come across a fair few people that came in under Blair’s freedom of movement who have been astounded that people were being paid not to work and the jobs handed out to those coming in. There are many who had no intention of becoming benefit dependent but have been forced down that track especially in the early days of Blair’s open door policy when employers were ditching people for a cheaper and smaller workforce. Many deny this, of course they would but it remains true.
I’ve also known people desperate to get back into work but needing to upgrade their skills, or help with retraining but no help available. However the packages for those being brought in as Conservatives boast of how we take more than others, is very generous in this area to ensure success for such people and a feather in the cap for the immigration works policy.
I could fill pages retelling experiences of those who want to work but seem to come up against a system designed to over complicate, require silly qualifications for jobs that just require common sense and your ABC/123 and some very odd cases of those applying for a job almost identical to one they’ve been made redundant from, yet being denied the chance to even apply by the Agency.
Train/retrain and retain our own should be the overriding principle.
June 14, 2022
So true Michelle, I know a young man laid of by the airport so he persuaded his father to lend him the money to train as an HGV driver, what if his father hadn’t been in the position following a small inheritance to do that? What options would this young man have in to a career that is essential for the UK?
June 13, 2022
Isn’t it time to phase out the welfare system and return their activities to charities? Judging by the sympathy of socialists to the needy, there should be no lack of funds contributed, and especially if the savings are turned into tax cuts.
The charities that have to be careful with their resources will be better placed to differentiate between genuine need and scroungers. Government can’t tell the difference.
June 13, 2022
Your ideas are intriguing âŠ.and it might have an unintended consequence as a disincentive for illegal immigrants â the removal of a welfare state will remove the incentive to cross the channel
June 13, 2022
The workplace is not a nice place to beâŠ
You only go from necessity!
And every successive govt is intent on making the situation worseâŠ.
June 14, 2022
“…very successive Tory government is…”
June 14, 2022
unlike the previous Labour Governments? – – tongue in cheek.
June 13, 2022
This figure of a million out of work is a myth- every week large numbers join the work force and large numbers leave. The figure of a million is made of different people each time the figures are counted. It is hard to receive JSA for any length of time if you are able bodied, quite rightly. There are long term unemployed but many have health and lifestyle issues that need addressing. The idea that there are vast swathes of people sitting around getting hand outs is a myth perpetuated by certain newspapers and politicians.
June 13, 2022
The figures for vacancies is also misleading; the private sector publishes a vacancy as they have a real job post available while the public sector publishes a wish list of vacancies against a planned establishment (at some time) but the budgets only allow a fraction of those jobs to be filledâŠbut all vacancies are published
June 14, 2022
Absolutely agree.Paul.
And there are certain areas where unemployment is bad which need addressing.
June 13, 2022
Sir John, do you mean the Australian points system for migration? That’s a policy you stood for election on, in 2019.
June 13, 2022
That 2019 manifesto went straight into the bin
June 13, 2022
[…] Read more about Getting back to work […]
June 13, 2022
Can you imagine the fear of returning to work if you have been out of the workforce for a couple of years and more? Having to get used to the politics of work, colleagues, and customers, and the self-confidence required is often taken for granted by people fortunate not to have been put out of work.
The government also need to start with EU claimants that returned home that are still claiming UK UC.
June 13, 2022
Meanwhile in the real economy, GDP contracted in March and April.
If you’re an employer, you’re surely going to be cautious about taking on staff, now inflation is making the public more cautious on spending.
The sooner we have a government that puts this country’s interests first, the better. It could start by recognising that sanctions on Russia haven’t worked and are causing us self-inflicted economic damage.
June 14, 2022
If I was an employer I’d be looking for positive indicators before taking the plunge to add to the workforce.
So I am still waiting, the Government seem intent on frustrating my growth plans…
June 13, 2022
And in other news I guess you have been involved with the new NI act allegedly going through soon.
We are already seeing the âRemainâ lines namely it breaks an international treaty. Unless it does âyouâ should get on the front foot with your rebuttals.
Indeed once again your messaging is either non existent or being swamped by the left wing press. Get on to Rupert Murdoch and get some âscreamingâ headlines in the Sun etc.
June 13, 2022
There is a distinct lack of work ethic.
A rethink on the way we teach children in school. Not every child will aspire to going to university to do courses that could be really neither use nor ornament in the real world. Re think the curriculum and bring in hands on educational packages that will enable children to leave school with at least a basic NVQ level 1 to make themselves more marketable in something they really want to do.
June 13, 2022
The obvious answer to easing the cost of living crisis is to cut tax. The Government instead chooses to increase socialist initiatives burdening those running businesses and those who choose to work.
Covid was clearly God’s gift to socialists.
Your Government – and the maniac in charge of it – is an existential threat to our way of life.
Clearly you cannot change from within.
June 13, 2022
Cut taxes and cut the climate change act
June 13, 2022
I know a number of people who are not working because of govt regulations. These are two engineers, an accountant and four IT workers who are sitting out the job market either waiting for an outside IR35 contract or because the agency who found them some work were trying to force the costs and risks of the contract later being deemed inside IR35 back onto them via the contract’s terms and conditions (so they turned it down).
It occurred to me how counter-productive such a tax system is – when these guys are working more for the government (and its hare-brained spending antics) than they are for their own families, it’s no wonder they decide that they’ve had enough early on in each tax year and just stay out of the market.
Three of them took an inside IR35 contract until they used up all their pension contribution allowances, then sat at home waiting for an outside IR35 contract.
Many firms are only offering inside IR35 work and trying to enforce a return to in-office work in London. It was supposed to be illegal to make blanket determinations, but strangely… nothing is ever done about that, as long as they are all determining “inside”.
These statistics go unrecorded, in terms of unemployment etc, since they wouldn’t be eligible for benefits even if they had no income at all – this is because they are seen as self-employed when it comes to benefits and rights (so they don’t get any of either), but they are supposedly both employee and employer when it comes to paying taxes. It’s a wonder they stay in this country.
Where the numbers are certainly felt, is in GDP – if they’re not working then they’re not paying income taxes and NI.
June 13, 2022
I read yesterday that the Bank of England is paying ÂŁ203,000 for consultants to produce a new mission statement! Do they not know their mission? If they don’t how can a bunch of consultants know? What a complete waste of money following on ÂŁ50,000 spent on a new logo. Today we hear the Bank of England is caught out by shock GDP fall. When is someone going to get a grip of this? The public are being treated as fools.
June 13, 2022
well the public elect fools!
June 13, 2022
I predict that the scheduled flight to Rwanda is cancelled
The illegal immigrants can apply for the thousands of food delivery jobs in the UK
June 13, 2022
We all know what is needed to get more people back to work simply do not pay health people not to work at a rate that makes working rather pointless (after the loss of time, tax, NI and travel costs are considered. Most of the unemployed are behaving rationally given the idiotic tax and benefit system the government has in place. Then cut taxes, go for cheap energy and have a bonfire of red tape. So what do we get today yet more red tape in relation to food sales and supermarket shelves.
So the queen is to honour (yet again) Tony Blair (and the dreadful Baroness Amos). Why would anyone sensible want to do that? I have yet to find a single think that the Blair Government did in ten years that was not negative. Appalling wars, botched devolution, the HR legal agenda, the Supreme Court, economic lunacy and bust from the foolish Gordon Brown, burying us further into the EU.
Blair did I suppose suggest that a one vaccine shot first policy (a few weeks after I did so) made sense. But even this in the end did little good. This as the statistics now show clearly the vaccines are fairly or totally ineffective anyway. Indeed overall they may have done net harm it seems the 80-90% vaccine claims were vastly exaggerated to say the least.
June 13, 2022
There are not many people ‘permanently on benefits’ who would really like to work and most of those few wanting work are too physically disabled to work or at least do most kinds of work.
The problem is far too many people are nowadays able to get lucrative disability benefits by getting themselves declared permanently medically disabled, often with some ridiculous modern mental ‘syndrome’ or other (though people can also get more benefits and permanently evade work by getting themselves diagnosed as alcoholics and even if they then give up alcohol as ‘recovering alcoholics’).
What is needed is first a policy recognition that while many people cannot physically do some jobs that does not usually mean they cannot do any job. For instance if somebody has a walking disability he may not be able to do a labouring job but he could do a desk job and should not therefore as a general policy get disability benefits. Also disability benefits are often so high (compared to lowish pay after tax for working people) that they should be reduced.
June 13, 2022
I think many of us on this site are agreed about the problems our host regularly describes. What to do about them? We can start by watching Reform UK’s policy launch by Richard Tice on Youtube today.
June 13, 2022
+1
June 13, 2022
Stop immigration and start checking employers are only employing those who have the right to work in the UK, as other countries do. If employers really need to bring in foreign workers they need to pay for their accommodation, healthcare, schooling and an infrastructure levy.
Stop worthless degrees, halve the university establishment and civil service to bring these people into the real workplace.
Reduce the career unemployed by introducing after a year community service and food kitchens instead of bank transfers. Bus vouchers can be given for any necessary travel.
June 13, 2022
Some benefits are taxable and some are not taxable.
Why is this ?
https://www.gov.uk/income-tax/taxfree-and-taxable-state-benefits
Maybe all benefits should be taxable. An increase in benefits would then would be of particular value to someone receiving an amount below the tax threshold. Any extra tax paid by those benefit receivers with a higher income could finance the higher benefit amounts ?
Also, maybe a complete merger of the benefit and the tax computer systems would help indentify fraud ?
Might it also focus the mind of the recipient .. if they are going to pay tax anyway, then they might as well get a job (if they are able) ?
June 13, 2022
Fraser Nelson recently wrote in The Spectator, https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/how-are-five-million-brits-without-work- :
âLast week, I came across a figure so staggering that I was convinced it was wrong: 5.3 million Brits (almost the population of Scotland) are on out-of-work benefits.âHow could this be, with ministers so regularly boasting that unemployment stands at a 40-year low?âHow could it be, when a national shortage of workers has been declared â and the aviation industry has been begging the government to relax immigration rules, saying that weâre out of workers?â
Some interesting accompanying charts to the article are available on the Home page of their excellent data-analysis site: https://data.spectator.co.uk
June 13, 2022
Another problem we have is the perverse incentive of the benefits system to only work 16 hours per week. What seems not to be taken into account is the actual cost of working, for example, the cost of travelling to and from work, buying work clothes, buying lunches, paying tradesmen to do jobs workers havenât the time to do themselves, childcare costs. Is it any wonder that benefit recipients choose not to work more hours than they have to. Governments have taken away the incentive to work and continue to reward the feckless and penalise workers with their constant tax burden.
June 13, 2022
6 Million ‘not looking for for work’? How is that calculated – benefit claimants should be looking for work.
Are they ‘homers’ sponging on family?
I million unemployed? -Is that regional where jobs don’t exist? Are the vacancies on offer so poorly paid they find reasons to refuse?
Surely the stats require drilling down to deal with the apparent nonsense.
Somebody (hundreds of thousands?) are having the taxpayer on.
June 13, 2022
oh and my mental health is suffering thinking and worrying about all this – should I be claiming benefits as a result?
June 13, 2022
Benefit fraud has gone through the roof due to MPs insisting that payments are made upfront before identity checks are carried out. I donât know of any other country in the world that has such a lax benefits system. No wonder so many economic migrants want to get into our country.
June 13, 2022
Just because there are jobs available and people available doesn’t mean the two can be easily matched. Do the people available have the skills needed (or the ability to acquire them)? For those jobs which need to be done in a specific place, are there people close enough by?
For any job that really could be done from anywhere, government should lead by example and actively recruit in areas of higher unemployment under remote working terms.
June 13, 2022
A big problem in the labour market is the time taken to recruit staff. It takes at least two months to do this in the public sector. Highly regulated industries like banking and defense have similar problems.
These delays result in stuff not getting done (sounds familiar?), lost GDP and tax revenue.
It also introduces perverse incentives not to recruit the unemployed. If you select them, they may find a different job by the time recruitment is complete.
The root cause, is the build up of regulations creating hurdles in the recruitment process. Either scrap the regulations or fix them by improving and digitising them at the same time. Aim for most checks to take less than a day, or less than a week for detailed vetting.
June 13, 2022
“It also introduces perverse incentives not to recruit the unemployed. If you select them, they may find a different job by the time recruitment is complete.”
Indeed. I listened to an interview with a recruiter for the aviation sector a few weeks back and he said that this was one of the causes of the current issues at some airports. By the time government security clearance had come through (3 months wait before they can start training), people had already found another job.
June 13, 2022
>The Welfare Secretary is planning to re introduce the checks and interviews that were in place before covid for those on out of work benefits.
I should bl**dy well hope so. I’m not convinced that a proportion of the people who have been claiming are even in the country. Stop incentivising people not to work; or not to work more than a small number of hours a week, while taxpayers strive and struggle to make ends meet. I notice The Times targets the over-50s.. And shine a light on illegal employment practices.
June 13, 2022
Employers struggling to fill posts formerly filled by cheap EU migrants is a good sign and a benefit of Brexit. Theyâll have to pay higher wages to attract staff and recoup the difference through productivity increases and efficiency savings. Thatâs exactly what we want.
June 13, 2022
Spot On
June 13, 2022
On the one hand the cost of living crisis offers a very strong incentive to try to earn more income to help to afford basic bills. On the other, its causes in high taxation and subsidy and bad energy policy do nothing for job security. I am putting together a submission to OFGEM for its consultation on revising the methodology for the cap, and I note that government is toying with yet more tinkering with markets that will probably have unwanted side effects: I await details. My draft submission introduction reads:-
OFGEM has been conflicted ever since the 2010 Energy Act that required it to place green interests above consumer interests. It should revert to being a consumer champion, because no-one else is in government departments and their quangos. It has left OFGEM blind to recommending or discussing many policies that could be of benefit to consumers.
Whatever OFGEM does to limit the bills faced by household consumers under that constraint means that the burden is borne by suppliers and their other customers â industrial, commercial and public sector. Any policy discussion needs to secure a proper balance across the entire economy.
Reading through the public responses to the previous consultation and the OFGEM consultation it is quite plain that there is a totally inadequate understanding of commodity derivatives within the industry and OFGEM itself. This results in a complete inability to properly analyse risks and feasibility of proposals. There is no examination of the underlying market capacity to provide a hedging regime, or proper discussion of what might be appropriate, or of the dividing line between OFGEM policy and government welfare support.
June 13, 2022
Rather than keep pandering to the left, this Government should be looking at making a career choice of living on Universal Credit impossible – unless you are GENUINELY ill, or disabled. Which has been verified by health professionals.
There are too many out there that are fit and able to work but choose not to. Why are we forced to fund such people?
When the state provides Universal Credit, housing/rent allowances, council tax reductions, the greatest help with rising energy bills, free prescriptions, free dental treatment and free everything else that everyone else in work has to pay for, what incentive is there?
The welfare state desperate needs taking back to what is what originally supposed to be – a safety net.
Not a lifestyle choice for a fair number who can’t be bothered.
June 13, 2022
But according to the BBC and endorsed by this government, the current thinking is that 99% of the country has either a mental health issues or is subject to hate crime
June 13, 2022
I listened to the food strategy statement todayâŠ.all I heard was that our government wishes to increase the number of âtemporaryâ immigrant food pickers by 10,000; everything else was blah blah blah â with the total lack of substance, that statement couldâve been written in half an hour
June 13, 2022
Without following other western nations in sanctioning those on benefits who refuse work they can do, there’ll be no take up of employment.
And unless the in-work benefits schemes are shredded, nobody will work more than a few hours per week, which means they won’t contribute adequately to their own health, welfare and pension costs, and will end up with ‘guaranteed pension credits’ – regarding it as their ‘right’ – and often better off than many who worked hard, saved for their old age, and paid high taxes.
From 2010 every Tory Government saw no problem in copying these policies – inaugurated by the Blair and Brown Governments, fishing for votes among the ‘lifestyle’ junkies, and fishing for low-wage employers who knew the government (i.e. taxpayer) would supplement their lazily low pay. I assume that having aided the country’s educational slide to the bottom, the Tories see no possibility of appealing to the majority’s sense of reason and instinctive common sense – both of which vanished long ago.
June 13, 2022
Correct – in-work benefits schemes are a political stunt ….and the real benefit is to the employer paying low wages
June 13, 2022
Sir John.
You are definitely right to object to Immigration of any kind. Shame your Party doesn’t always agree with you.
My own experience when I was of working age, is that Job Centre staff never asked me what I actually WANTED to do.
We are all PEOPLE not bits of paper, lists of qualifications on a CV, or statistics.
June 13, 2022
Richard Tice, Leader of Reform UK, today said what I want to hear.
But then, he’s a real conservative.
June 13, 2022
Concur – gets my vote
June 13, 2022
Well Boris the Traitor is certainly back to work – and back to his old tricks of trying to fool his gullible supporters, and backbench Brexiteers! The Bill he has put before parliament does not make a single change to the Protocol or to the way it is currently operating. Not one! It just enables ministers to maybe do so at some later day, one day, never. In fact, Boris has made it very clear this is just a negotiating tactic, designed to obtain some small, insignificant concession from the EU that he can then hold up, like Neville Chamberlain and his infamous little piece of paper, and claim victory.
Boris is a coward who has no intention of standing up to the EU. If he intended to do so he would have triggered Article 16 by now, that’s obvious. I mean, how stupid do you have to be to believe that he will actually do something worthwhile? Even a blind man can see what a weak, stupid and treacherous PM he is. Just look at the Rwanda fiasco – eight, yes EIGHT illegals are going to be deported. That’s it! Out of 10,000 who have arrived this year alone. Boris is laughing at all those who voted for him.
June 13, 2022
It was always going to be a disaster when they decided to be selective (no women, no children, no families) and only sent young men to Rwanda
I believe in equal opportunitiesâŠ.send everyone
June 13, 2022
I would hope that the relevant department send it’s investigators down to all the protesters trying to stop the illegal immigrants from being flown out to Rwanda and check out how many are self sufficient or claiming benefits? For my money they should be out job hunting not protesting against a legal government policy. If they are on benefits call them in and stop their payments. Scrape the ECHR Act and take control of our own destiny.
June 13, 2022
I remember this government talking big about scraping ECHR before the last election….enough said
June 13, 2022
well the long term unemployed left stranded in social housing which was originally built to house the workers of large employers, like shipyards, mines, steelworks, etc, which have long since shut, and no new employers have emerged in those places to soak up the potential workers, are struggling due to the way the state subsidises houses in places where there are simply not the jobs.
in a normal economy big employer shuts would lead to collapse in house prices (rents & purchase price) locally, meaning people could afford to live there for less, meaning new employers would tend to move in to use those workers who needed less money for housing so able to accept more competitive wages. in extreme places with few jobs, people would abandon the housing and move elsewhere in the country. but we dont have any of that. we have artificial housing manipulated by the state, we force people to live there, in places with few jobs.
meanwhile in places with lots of jobs we have lack of housing supply, again due to poor state manipulation, poor planning system etc. so people take matters into their own hands and live in garages and garden sheds etc.
the state is the main problem in all of this.
June 13, 2022
Fixing the issue of references for workers with long absences from the workforce would do a great deal to get people off the dole and back into work. This obviously includes women who took breaks to raise families, but also those with long-term medical issues such as cancer, or even those whose former employers went bankrupt during covid or the downturns leaving them with no reference.
Many of the ‘casual’ jobs locally will not hire anyone without two employment references, and that obviously reduces who can apply. The same is true of certain temp agencies, making it hard to get references that way. While some companies have ‘returners’ schemes, it is very few and most are looking for specialist skills. I’ve also heard of voluntary organisations refusing to provide references so they don’t lose volunteers. I worked with a not-for-profit who investigated this problem before Covid, but there’s been little progress.
June 14, 2022
Very good point. The requirement for references gets to be a real hurdle the longer it is you haven’t worked or have worked but for gig employers who don’t give references.
I’ve worked a year as a food delivery rider: the companies I’ve worked for don’t “do”references and I have no supervisor with a direct email address that recruiters could contact.
I’m stuck when it comes to looking for another job, just as I’m getting too worn and old to continue cycling up to 80km a day with a heavy rucksack full of food on my back.
June 13, 2022
So Mr Gove over rules a local planning authority for the commencement of a fracking site as reported in Not a Lot of People Know That blog.
That’s a good start for creating more jobs then.
June 13, 2022
BBC Institutional Alarmism exposed on Net Zero Watch.
No wonder there is a struggle to get positive thinking regarding the long term future of this country generated across to the critical mass of the population.
June 13, 2022
New Zealand to tax farmers for their cattle and sheep belching and flatulence.
The risk of more jobs going if Carrie encourages Boris to follow suite.
When is this madness going to end.
June 13, 2022
Another very good reason to be out of the EU. Has anyone thought about the knock on impact on jobs across the automotive manufacturing sectors. Do they really want all this green crap or are the pennies just dropping into place?
https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/top-producer-albemarle-risks-shutting-german-plant-if-eu-declares-lithium-hazard-2022-06-07/
June 13, 2022
Anybody who has had a spell out of work and found a job knows that the DWP’s “help” is usually at best an irrelevance and at worst a waste of time and money all round.
The DWP forces people to apply for jobs they have no chance of getting. Got an arthritic hip? These ideologues force you to apply for jobs on building sites that involve lifting, etc. Think square pegs, round holes. Employers get annoyed at this nonsense and hide their vacancies from the public job market.
The DWP had done a great job at scaring off employers from advertising jobs!
Stick to the private sector free market job agencies, they are not perfect, but don’t put people with one leg forward for jobs that need able-bodied folk etc.
All the DWP should do is check unemployed folk are registered with two or three suitable agencies, and they are allowing their CV to go to relevant employers and attending interviews (on time, good manners, properly attired) etc.
June 14, 2022
Just listening to Elon Musk and he says the future of the world’s environment is GOOD (as long as we don’t get complacent about it). And that we have to become self-sufficient in energy: Wind, Solar & Nuclear.
So, he is just confirming what I already suspected and being banging on about:
1) Don’t listen to the hysterical left-wing greenies
2) Don’t listen to the gas-guzzling dinosaur capitalists obsessed by fossil fuels (not capitalists in general – I’m a capitalist – but the gas-guzzling, dinosaur, fossil-fuel dependant ones).
So TECHNOLOGY will / can save the day (as long as we’re not complacent etc). Saving both our environment AND our economy. Where we CAN have our cake and it.
(Are there problems with green technology. YES. A lot. But things will get better. Who ever would have thought that within 70 years of the Wright Brothers flying their kite-like plane on the beach that man would be sending man to the moon etc .. And lots of people were complaining about the limitations fo the battery but already huge improvements have been made here – improvements people didn’t think possible.
So it’s not a question of if the world will go properly green, but when, and how are we in the UK going to become a leader in green tech that’s going to get more and more important and more and more big in terms of adding to our high tech economy and the money to be made from that.
June 14, 2022
So the UK needs to aim to become completely self-sufficient in energy (no dependence on fossil fuels – how the price of which can fluctuate so much / how fossil fuels are so often in the hands of thugs / fossil fuels are just becoming more unpopular anyway for all kinds of environmental reasons, including pollution and noise in cities). So we need to focus more on Solar and Wind (sure still big problems here in technology), Fracking and Nuclear. And choose to become 100% energy self-sufficient by a certain date.
And we also need to develop powerful laser technology to defend ourselves from hypersonic missiles, WMD, powerful drones and so on, including attacks from drones within our borders (God forbid). Israel is smart and already started on this was some success.
We also need to take serious action with immigration (far more stringent – not forgetting that charity also begins at home).
We also need to look at becoming more self-sufficient in food (In 1984 we were 78% self-sufficient, surely we can get to 90% self-sufficient, leaving a 10% gap for luxurious items we would all like to indulge in from time to time but are not critical if there were ever a world crisis or whatever).
All possible. We need to turn ourselves into a self-sufficient, secure fortress (without becoming Little Englanders either). But at same time being open to business across the world.
June 14, 2022
Ed M
The only real problem with wind and solarapart apart from reliability on mother nature is the vast areas of land they need both for the generators and their battery back up. Fine in Australia, the USA and other continents but this is a very small island in comparison.
Nuclear Fusion will be the answer to this country’s problems and the engineers and scientists are moving steadily to geting the finished article.
June 14, 2022
Since we’re a very small _island_, that would suggest another source of power all round us which might be more reliable than solar.
June 14, 2022
Hi. Yes, Wind accounted for nearly 25% of UK Electricity in 2020, higher than both Coal and Nuclear for electricity.
The dinosaurs that keep banging on about how we need to rely on Fossil Fuels really are becoming more and more quaint as time passes.
Putin’s war in Ukraine, and our dependence on Russian Gas and dodgy regimes in control of oil is really another nail in the coffin for those who argue the future is Oil / Gas!
(I’m no green at all – can’t stand the hysteria of the green left – but I just see a tonne of money to be made out of green tech in the future plus we don’t have to be dependent on rogue states for our energy. Plus, I look forward to the day, when you’ll be able to stroll the streets of London without a cloud of thick, car smoke filling up one’s lungs).
June 14, 2022
Some of the ideas being put forward to improvements in renewable energy is truly exciting. Science is extraordinary. Technology is extraordinary. Only luddites would poo poo the future of green technology, thinking there is some sort of ‘catch.’ No. There’s no catch. But it does take a certain amount of the spirit of adventure to create and develop this new technology. Fear / complacency won’t make it happen. Fear / complacency about green tech is as dangerous to our economy and environment as the hysteria of the greenies (because the way they want to do things would destroy our economy which would then result in chaos and a desperate return to fossil fuels type thing).
We just need to stay calm and be excited about the future of green tech so that we can have as strong an economy as ever whilst also looking after our planet (I don’t want to grow two heads thank you very much and have to walk around in a bubble suit thank you very much!)
June 14, 2022
a) increase personal allowances.
b) merge NIC & PAYE
c) Aim for net zero-immigration.
d) work visa’s should come at substantial cost to employers to ensure wider costs housing .social costs are recovered.
e) subsidies eg reduced NI for overseas workers obviously should cease.
f) ensure that all job openings are advertised in the UK.
g) if long term unemployed offer NIC/PAYE discounts rebated against corporation tax.
h) ensure work pays better than benefits.
i) you need a separate system for health related claims and or older claimants. Some may not meet any of the criteria around NI contributions and are effectively maintained within family units with little to zero support or NI credits. They may be quite unable to claim and may not receive any suitable NHS care.
j) means testing is just mean and should not be applied for those paying arms length private sector rents saving in defined account for home deposit only, as long as the funds are from paye / taxed income, not gifted or inherited.
k) tax relief for individuals renting in the private sector where rent is paid out of taxed paye income.
h) heavy fines for employing illegals , if illegally employed within the government loss of job of HR or hirer responsible!
Perhaps all benefits need to be taxable,including benefits in kind like social rents, but we do need much higher personal allowances for our low paid and those paying private sector rents.
Perhaps we need some better taxes , land taxes and say specific luxury taxes on the mega-rich lifestyle, say excessive carbon use say private jet fuel use. Maybe even a pro-rata per day residency concept. Caps on tax breaks, with minimum tax rates or flat taxes.
June 14, 2022
Instead of investing in HS2, couldn’t government use some of the money to help re-establish British Car Industry (where we make our own British-owned cars). Modelling somewhat on the German Car Industry (which the German government helps from one degree to another).
The German Car Industry is huge in its influence to the German economy. Not just financial but also psychological. Germans love the fact that they produce their own beautifully designed and engineered cars, involving lots of different high quality skills and that get exported abroad. German car brands that people love abroad.
Why can’t we do the same here in the UK? We know how to produce beautifully-looking cars and wonderfully engineered cars. Why can’t we produce the equivalent of the Audi, the BMW, the Mercedes, the Golf and so on. And also how this would help other areas of the industry. And also this would tie in with building the best electronic cars of the future as well.
I bet lots of people here would be delighted to buy a British-made / British-owned car but isn’t a sports car or a luxury car or a mini or a range rover but a more ‘ordinary’ good quality, beautiful-looking British car.