Kemi Badenoch is to set out Conservative plans to stop unemployed school leavers claiming Universal Credit immediately, instead requiring them to complete intensive job coaching under a proposed “Get To Work” scheme.
The Tory leader said the measures would form a central part of the party’s welfare reform agenda at its conference in Birmingham next week, as the Conservatives seek to draw a dividing line with Labour.
Conservative plans for unemployed school leavers
Under the proposals, young people leaving school without work would initially be required to attend a programme designed to help them enter employment rather than signing on for benefits.
The scheme could involve daily attendance at a job centre, work experience, interview preparation and training in basic skills such as communication and teamwork.
Those who did not do enough to look for work could also be required to take part in community work, including litter picking. Anyone who had not found or accepted a job after six months would be moved to a new Subsistence Allowance worth 70 per cent of the basic Universal Credit rate.
The proposed allowance would be paid on to a card with restrictions preventing it being used for alcohol, cigarettes or gambling.
Helen Whately, the shadow work and pensions secretary, said urgent action was needed to address a benefits system in which one million young people were not in education, employment or training.
“Too many young people are leaving school and signing straight onto benefits,” she said. “This is a waste of their potential and a disaster for our economy. Our Get To Work scheme will break this toxic cycle. If you don’t take part, you won’t get welfare.”
She added: “Sometimes, you have to show some tough love.”
The Conservatives have already pledged to reduce the welfare bill by £23 billion as part of a wider £47 billion savings plan and are expected to announce further reforms at the conference.
Mrs Badenoch said the party wanted to “put the fair back in welfare”, arguing that the current system was unfair to people who went out to work. She told the Spectator that a tougher approach was needed towards benefits.
She also said people with “low-level” conditions such as ADHD or anxiety should be expected to work where their conditions allowed it. “These are conditions you can work with and so you should be working,” she said, adding that the Conservatives were targeting people who could work but were not doing so, rather than vulnerable claimants.
Mrs Badenoch accused Labour of offering “Corbynism with better packaging” and said its policies represented a return to Left-wing ideas from the 1970s. She said: “They are the welfare party. It’s in their DNA. They’re not the party of the working classes at all.”
The Conservative leader also criticised Labour’s conference as “student union” politics and said the coming contest would be a “battle of ideas”.
