By Christina Fincher
LONDON, June 27 (Reuters) - Britain plans to give relocation help to unemployed workers, a senior minister said on Sunday, drawing criticism from opposition politicians who claimed those on benefits could be penalised if they refused to move.
Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith told the Sunday Telegraph he was looking to bring forward proposals to make the workforce more mobile.
The comments drew parallels with remarks made in 1981 by the then-Conservative minister Norman Tebbit who urged the unemployed to get on their bike and look for work.
'In Britain now we have workforces that are locked to areas and the result of that is we have over five and a half million people of working age who simply don't do a job,' Duncan Smith told the newspaper.
'Often they are trapped in estates where there is no work ... We have to look at how we get that portability, so that people can be more flexible, can look for work, can take the risk to do it.'
Duncan Smith said the plans would focus on incentives rather than compulsion and would aim to help jobless people living in council houses move out of unemployment blackspots.
He was also clear that the government would not slacken efforts to regenerate areas of high unemployment by means of regional tax breaks.
Britain's seven week-old coalition government has already taken several steps to cut welfare payments. A cap on housing benefit and tougher health checks for those on disability benefit were announced in last week's 'emergency' budget which unveiled plans for the toughest squeeze on public spending since World War Two.
Regional disparities in Britain are expected to deepen over the next five years as public sector workers face pay cuts and redundancies. In some areas of northern England, well over half the workforce is employed by the state.
Duncan Smith also announced his intention to tackle under occupation of large council homes.
'We have tons of elderly people living in houses which they cannot run and we've got queues of desperate people with families who are living in one and two-bedroom houses and flats,' he said.
Opposition education secretary Ed Balls said the plan smacked of the uncompassionate stance the Conservative government took in the 1980s
'It is on your bike and lose your home,' Balls said, referring to Tebbit's famous refrain. 'That seems to be profoundly unfair and the wrong way to deal with the unemployment problem.'
(Editing by Myra MacDonald) Keywords: BRITAIN JOBLESS/RELOCATION (London newsroom +44 207 542 7748; Reuters Messaging christina.fincher.reuters.com@reuters.net) COPYRIGHT Copyright Thomson Reuters 2010. All rights reserved. The copying, republication or redistribution of Reuters News Content, including by framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Thomson Reuters.
LONDON, June 27 (Reuters) - Britain plans to give relocation help to unemployed workers, a senior minister said on Sunday, drawing criticism from opposition politicians who claimed those on benefits could be penalised if they refused to move.
Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith told the Sunday Telegraph he was looking to bring forward proposals to make the workforce more mobile.
The comments drew parallels with remarks made in 1981 by the then-Conservative minister Norman Tebbit who urged the unemployed to get on their bike and look for work.
'In Britain now we have workforces that are locked to areas and the result of that is we have over five and a half million people of working age who simply don't do a job,' Duncan Smith told the newspaper.
'Often they are trapped in estates where there is no work ... We have to look at how we get that portability, so that people can be more flexible, can look for work, can take the risk to do it.'
Duncan Smith said the plans would focus on incentives rather than compulsion and would aim to help jobless people living in council houses move out of unemployment blackspots.
He was also clear that the government would not slacken efforts to regenerate areas of high unemployment by means of regional tax breaks.
Britain's seven week-old coalition government has already taken several steps to cut welfare payments. A cap on housing benefit and tougher health checks for those on disability benefit were announced in last week's 'emergency' budget which unveiled plans for the toughest squeeze on public spending since World War Two.
Regional disparities in Britain are expected to deepen over the next five years as public sector workers face pay cuts and redundancies. In some areas of northern England, well over half the workforce is employed by the state.
Duncan Smith also announced his intention to tackle under occupation of large council homes.
'We have tons of elderly people living in houses which they cannot run and we've got queues of desperate people with families who are living in one and two-bedroom houses and flats,' he said.
Opposition education secretary Ed Balls said the plan smacked of the uncompassionate stance the Conservative government took in the 1980s
'It is on your bike and lose your home,' Balls said, referring to Tebbit's famous refrain. 'That seems to be profoundly unfair and the wrong way to deal with the unemployment problem.'
(Editing by Myra MacDonald) Keywords: BRITAIN JOBLESS/RELOCATION (London newsroom +44 207 542 7748; Reuters Messaging christina.fincher.reuters.com@reuters.net) COPYRIGHT Copyright Thomson Reuters 2010. All rights reserved. The copying, republication or redistribution of Reuters News Content, including by framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Thomson Reuters.