Labour is preparing to offer a “jobs guarantee” for all of Britain’s 2.5 million unemployed people in its election manifesto, The Times has learnt.
The proposal emerged from a three-hour Cabinet meeting on Tuesday, during which Gordon Brown told ministers to produce Labour’s most radical manifesto for a generation.
Senior Whitehall sources say that the promise is likely to be among five or six key pledges that Labour believes can help to erode the double-digit Tory poll lead. Under the measure, anyone claiming jobseeker’s allowance for more than two years would be assured training or a work placement funded by the Government. Those who failed to take up the offer would lose benefits.
The intention is to build on the £1.5 billion youth jobs guarantee — which will be promoted nationwide in the coming weeks — for people aged 18 to 24 who claim jobseeker’s allowance for more than six months.
Officials acknowledge that extending the promise to the long-term and older unemployed will be difficult as well as costly. The Treasury is thought to have indicated, though, that some money could be found from revenue generated by the one-off tax on bankers’ bonuses. Further funds could come from an estimated £10 billion saved by the level of unemployment being 450,000 lower than was expected at the time of the last Budget.
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Yvette Cooper, the Work and Pensions Secretary, has announced plans to offer “tailored support” for unemployed people aged over 50 and to ensure that claimants who take jobs would receive £40 a week more than if they stayed on benefit.
Although ministers emphasised last night that the proposed jobs guarantee “had not yet been signed off”, it is being backed by Ed Miliband, the Energy and Climate Change Secretary, who has been charged with drawing up the manifesto, David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary, and Ms Cooper.
The party’s manifesto is being designed around a series of guarantees described by a Whitehall source as “pillars of security in an era of uncertainty and spending cuts”. The Government has announced legally guaranteed minimum waiting times for NHS treatment and made similar promises for education.
These, together with promises to halve the deficit and to introduce free personal care, are expected to form the core of a boiled-down manifesto which may see the return of the pledge card used with such success by Tony Blair in 1997.
Mr Brown has also underlined the importance of policies on jobs which he believes can help remind voters of the unemployment levels under the last Conservative government.
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Ministers will emphasise that the Jobs Guarantee would include new responsibilities, as well as rights, for those claimants who are seen as having become dependent on benefits. For instance, Ms Cooper has said that unemployed partners of benefit claimants will be forced to look for work.
Government sources say that longer-term reforms of the £42 billion-a-year welfare budget are being considered, including the introduction of a “single working age benefit”. This would roll into one simplified package of overlapping payments such as the JSA, invalidity and possibly housing benefit.
The Tories are already planning big changes to the welfare system. David Cameron has proposed scrapping the New Deal and other initiatives to create a new Work Programme for the jobless.
He has also announced that all 2.64 million people currently on incapacity benefit will have to undergo a “fit for work” test. Those capable of work will be transferred immediately to the JSA — which is worth £20 less a week and forces claimants to look for work.