It was one of those moments that sum up why Britain’s welfare system so desperately needs to be reformed. A young man at the end of a busy shift behind a bar. A few months out of school, in his first job.
“So what’s happened to your friends from school?” he was asked. “A lot of them signed on and are sitting at home playing computer games,” was the response.
Leaving school or college and heading out into the world of work is never easy, even in good times. It’s a huge transition as well as a practical challenge.
With the economy going through troubled times it’s doubly difficult. But walk into any café, bar or restaurant in London to be served by a young person who has managed to come from another part of the world to find work, and you know that there are jobs out there in London for young people.
The challenge is to get school and college leavers ready for a life of work, and to find those first opportunities.
Most young people are trying very hard to find work — and we should make sure that they get immediate help to do so. But there are some who really are sitting at home and putting little effort into moving on in life.
Other countries take a much tougher approach. When it comes to benefits for young people straight out of education, forget it. You don’t get social security until you’ve worked and paid something in.
It’s time to look at a different way in Britain. A something-for-nothing culture does no one any favours. It makes those who are doing the right thing cynical.
And for those who head straight into the welfare state, it sets them out in life on precisely the wrong footing.
Of course we can’t just leave young people, particularly those in difficult circumstances, with no access to financial support. But it’s not at all unreasonable to expect them to do something in return for that support. And that’s what a new trial we are launching in London will do.
Later this year we will begin a scheme that will ask young Londoners signing on for the first time to do three months of full-time community work in return for their benefits. As part of the scheme, they will also receive support in looking for jobs and getting themselves ready for the world of work.
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Every young person who has done less than six months’ previous work will be asked to take part — and if they refuse, they will not be able to claim benefits.
We think the scheme has every chance of giving those young people a much better start. And when we have seen the results, it may offer a better way for their counterparts across the whole country.
The usual suspects will cry “slave labour”. They always do. But they are the people who believe that young claimants have the right to sit at home playing computer games. I simply disagree.
In an ideal world, no one should get something for nothing. And if you haven’t yet had the chance to make a financial contribution, then it’s not at all unreasonable to ask you to give something to the community before it gives something to you.
