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[UK] Court rules most Gov back-to-work schemes unlawful

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Tequila
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12 Feb 2013, 7:09 am

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Government back-to-work scheme is unlawful, court rules
  • The Government has been dealt a major blow after judges ruled that the regulations under which most of its back-to-work schemes were created are unlawful.
Ministers said they were “disappointed and surprised” after Cait Reilly, a university graduate, won her Court of Appeal claim that requiring her to work for free at a Poundland discount store was unlawful.

Miss Reilly, 24, from Birmingham, and a 40-year-old unemployed HGV driver Jamieson Wilson, from Nottingham, both succeeded in their claims that the unpaid schemes were legally flawed.

Their solicitors said later the ruling means “all those people who have been sanctioned by having their jobseekers' allowance withdrawn for non-compliance with the back-to-work schemes affected will be entitled to reclaim their benefits”.

This is very good news. Frankly, it's an absolute disgrace that such schemes were introduced in the first place and just shows how relentlessly the state which to kick people who are unemployed, for no fault of their own. The unemployment benefit is to help those people out of work to find it - it has nothing to do with basically forcing people to work for nothing in supermarket chains.

Excellent stuff.



Magneto
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12 Feb 2013, 11:51 am

I never could understand how the government paying for businesses to get free labour was supposed to help the unemployment rate...



Tequila
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12 Feb 2013, 12:05 pm

Agreed. Most of these schemes were simply exploitative. A shameful episode in our recent history.



Robdemanc
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12 Feb 2013, 2:11 pm

I am glad she has won the case, I heard about this a while ago and thought she had a good point. These schemes don't help the unemployed, they don't help the tax payer, and they reduce job vacancies. At a time when we are in an economic mess all of this does nothing to help the economy.

I believe Tesco were taking people from these schemes and not paying them. Like Tesco really need free workers at the tax payers expense.

The government should put pressure on employers to create vacancies, not pressure on the unemployed to find jobs that are not there.



thomas81
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12 Feb 2013, 2:58 pm

frankly i'm surprised that UKIP arent taking the tory line of getting 'value' from the 'workshy unwashed'.


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Tequila
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12 Feb 2013, 5:53 pm

thomas81 wrote:
frankly i'm surprised that UKIP arent taking the tory line of getting 'value' from the 'workshy unwashed'.

Some are - especially the social conservative wing (Paul Nuttall MEP and others). A lot aren't, especially those people on the more socially libertarian / less interested in bashing people wing of UKIP. I speak for myself, and frankly I've been embarrassed by some of the crap that some of the representatives of UKIP have come out with on this.

You have to remember that UKIP is not an ideologically cohesive political party where everyone believes the same thing. It's a disparate group of people. There are left-wingers, classical liberals and libertarians, social conservatives, nationalists and others.