Iain Duncan Smith's plans for welfare
reform suffered a setback today when the archbishop of Canterbury
suggested they were unfair and could plunge the unemployed into "a
downward spiral of uncertainty, even despair".
In a surprise intervention, Rowan Williams,
the head of the Church of England, said he had "a lot of worries" about
the government's proposals to force some people to do unpaid work in
return for unemployment benefit, which could make the workless feel more
vulnerable.
Labour and the TUC also criticised the proposal,
which was trailed in the Sunday papers, with full details promised later
this week when Duncan Smith, the work and pensions secretary, publishes
his white paper on welfare reform.
This will focus on the
universal credit, Duncan Smith's plan to merge existing benefits into a
single payment and to "make work pay" by cutting marginal deduction
rates, so that claimants no longer face the prospect of losing, say, 90p
in benefits for every £1 they earn.
But Duncan Smith wants to
combine more generous incentives with tougher sanctions.
Officials have
confirmed that the white paper will include plans for some claimants to
pend at least 30 hours a week for four weeks engaged in a "work
activity" placement, such as picking up litter or gardening.
Claimants
who refuse to do such work could lose benefit for at least three months.
In
an interview with the BBC, Williams said that he had "a lot of worries"
about this aspect of the plan.
"I don't immediately think it's fair,"
he said. "People who are struggling to find work and struggling to find a
secure future are – I think – driven further into a downward spiral of
uncertainty, even despair, when the pressure is on in that way.
"Quite
often it can make people start feeling vulnerable – even more
vulnerable as time goes on – and that's the kind of unfairness that I
feel.
"People often are [on benefits], not because they're wicked,
stupid or lazy, but because their circumstances are against them,
they've failed to break through into something and to drive that spiral
deeper – as I say – does seem a great problem."
Williams said that
he was "very anxious" about the impact of all the benefit cuts being
imposed by the government and that he was not yet convinced all sections
of society were making an equal contribution.
"I'm not
completely convinced about that, I must say. Because with the stories
that we have of continuing large bonuses of the very wealthy, it's not
the sort of thing that convinces people that's something they can all
sign up to."
The archbishop's intervention is ironic because
Duncan Smith, a Roman Catholic, is one of the most devout Christians in
the government.
He believes that his reforms will tackle welfare
dependency and, in an interview at the weekend, he claimed that the
plans being set out in the white paper, expected on Thursday, would
bring in "the biggest change since Beveridge introduced the welfare
system".
The Department for Work and Pensions would not say how
many unemployed people would be compelled to do a "work activity"
placement.
It will be an option available to advisers in job centres and
it will be used either to teach people work discipline or where it is
suspected that they already have a job that they are not declaring.
Danny
Alexander, the chief secretary to the Treasury, said that sanctions
were already "a well-established part of the welfare system".
But
Douglas Alexander, Labour's work and pensions spokesman, said there was
no point in penalising the unemployed when jobs were not available.
"The
Tories are focusing on the workshy but offering nothing to the
workless, despite the fact that today there are five unemployed people
chasing every job vacancy in the country," he said.
"The tragic flaw in
the Tory approach is that, without work, it won't work."
Richard
Exell, a TUC policy officer, said: "We think this is a policy which is
mainly objectionable because it is unfair to unemployed people, but it
is also unfair to workers who find themselves competing against people
paid much less than themselves and to any businesses in competition with
the organisations that have got this subsidised workforce."
SIC: TG/UK