The government will not reform welfare without a faster growing economy. I am all in favour of helping hundreds of thousands of people into work and off benefits. It's a great idea to help disabled people who can do some work to get a job tailored to their abilities. This has always been a cross party aspiration. To pull this off we need a buoyant private sector recruiting more people. We need businesses generating cash and profit so they can afford the extra employees. We need many more vacancies, real jobs that we can help them take up.
It would be a good idea to cut back all those visas for people to come from abroad to work here. Targeted programmes of training and getting local wages up can remove a shortage without the need for more legal migrants. They can help people off benefits. The UK recruited and trained many more as truck and van drivers to get us through lockdowns and to cater for the big expansion in on line shopping. Let's do the same in other areas.
The Chancellor studied economics - making her decisions all the more baffling - Sir John Redwood KC
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I did not understand the budget and condemned it at the time. Putting through a massive tax on jobs in the form of Employers' National Insurance was always a killer. Legislating more employee rights will add to employers risks. Putting extra taxes on successful small businesses when the working owner dies and wants the next generation to keep it going added to the gloom in the jobs market. Instead of creating conditions for more jobs and more willing employers seeking workers, the Chancellor crushed growth and vacancies fell.
Many of the new jobs that get created in good times come from small businesses expanding. They come from self employed people taking the big step to employ helpers. They come from new start ups as people spot a growth opportunity. You need to be positive about the future to recruit more staff. The killjoy budget meant business and consumer confidence fell. It pushed many businesses to shift from thinking of expanding to planning job losses and cost reductions. Many small businesses are worried sick about how to pay the National Insurance bill come April. They fear their order books will also be flat as consumer confidence is not good either.
The Chancellor has made it worse by only just squeezing below her borrowing limits. This leaves many worried she could be forced to break her word this autumn and go for more tax rises.
Home Secretary Yvette Cooper needs to be far less generous with visas.
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Meanwhile disabled people are now afraid they might lose benefits they currently receive, making them rein in already tight budgets. Many agree the government should tighten up the requirements for any new person seeking a sick note for life. A young person with mental health issues should not normally be written off from work unless there is a diagnosed serious condition that needs residential or full time treatment. We all agree some who are currently getting disability benefits can with help and support get work but that does not make it right or effective to threaten loss of benefits.
The Chancellor did study economics. That should have taught her if you make employing people dearer and more difficult businesses will hire less. It should have told her if you have no growth and waning confidence many businesses will shed labour or not replace people who leave. Getting people into work needs many more jobs and confident employers. To bring that about the Chancellor has to end her tax attack on jobs, business and energy use. The Home Secretary needs to be far less generous with visas. You cannot get the unemployed into work if unemployment is rising and employers are thinking of shedding labour . Big companies from steel and car producers to supermarkets are having to rein in as growth stalls.
