Learn English or lose benefits, unemployed told
People must speak or be learning English to claim jobseekers allowance, under government plans announced today.
Welfare minister Jim Murphy said 40,000 people blame their poor grasp of English for their unemployment and revealed £4.5 million is spent on translators at job centres every year.
He told the Work Foundation: “We must utilise the resources we have to redress the balance: to put the emphasis not just on translating language to claim a benefit; but to teaching language to get a job.
“Not just for the sake of employment rates, but for the benefit of the individual, their community and society as a whole.”
He said not enough people were taking up the language courses on offer to them and attending courses could be part of the jobseekers agreement signed by claimants from April.
If they fail to meet the requirements in the agreement, they could be stripped of their benefits.
Learning English would help ethnic minority communities who earn a third less than the national average wage, he said.
“This is a social injustice in our society which is not only bad for individuals, families and their communities, but is a barrier against social cohesion and is bad for Britain,” he warned.
But the Liberal Democrats have accused the government of failing to back up their words with actions.
Work and pensions spokesman David Laws said: “It is ironic that the government is seeking to introduce this change at the same time as education ministers are cutting back on the provision of classes for those without English as a first language.”
He added: “If these changes are going to be introduced then there needs to be free or low cost language training available in a way that’s not presently planned.”
The shadow work and pensions secretary Philip Hammond warned: “As always, when the government proposes a ‘carrot and stick’ approach, it is important that the carrot, as well as the stick, materialises.”
Their concerns were echoed by the National Institute of Adult Continuing Education (NIACE) and senior policy officer Alastair Thomson added: “It would be premature if changes were to be introduced before there are enough properly-qualified teachers to meet the demand.”
Mr Thomson also called for affordable courses to be made available to those already in work.
Mr Murphy made his speech on the same day a report from the Civitas think tank reveals one third of households rely on the government for at least half of their income.
It identifies “a growing problem of partial or in-work dependency” in which low paid workers have their income topped up by working tax credits and said the government was creating “beholden voters rather than independent people”.
The report argues individuals should be responsible for saving enough to support themselves but there must be “the absolute assurance that no one will fall below the national minimum if things go wrong”.
