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drinkanddrugsnews
| 7 March 2011
Seize the day |
Welfare reform
www.drinkanddrugsnews.com
The coalition’s proposals
for reforming the welfare
system are nothing if not
controversial. Andrew
Selous MP argued the
government’s case while
Niamh Eastwood of
Release spelled out her
organisation’s concerns.
T
he week before the government
launched its Welfare Reform Bill
2011 – called ‘the biggest shake up
of the system for 60 years’ by work
and pensions secretary Iain Duncan
Smith (
see news story, page 5
) –
panelists and delegates at
Seize the
Day!
debated the likely impact of the planned changes
on people struggling with drug and alcohol problems
and those trying to reintegrate into society.
‘I come into contact with a lot of service users – or,
as we’re now rebranding them, “recovery champions”
– and I hear stories about people having their benefits
cut all the time,’ said session chair and Camden
service user involvement officer, Alex Boyt. With
stigma remaining a huge issue in terms of access to
jobs, and decent housing a pre-requisite for any kind
of progress in treatment, some of the government’s
welfare reform proposals were ‘very worrying’, he said.
There was, however, cross-party consensus on the
reforms, Conservative MP for South West
Bedfordshire, Andrew Selous, told the conference. ‘It’s
not something Labour are opposed to.’ Many of the
worst off in society had been bypassed by previous
economic growth, he said, and it was the government’s
aim to make sure that everyone benefitted from future
prosperity and people were not ‘left behind on
benefits’. ‘It’s shocking that this country has one of
the highest levels of out-of-work households in Europe
– there are 1.9m children growing up in households
where no one works.’ In the current climate, however,
job creation would ‘predominantly have to come from
the private sector’, he acknowledged.
The government’s work programme would come on
stream in the spring, he said, and would be an
integrated package of measures and ‘much more
personalised than what’s gone before’. This meant
there would be an end to generic and often unsuitable
courses designed to prepare people for work, he
promised. ‘All of us, with our taxes, have been paying for
things that aren’t serving people well – putting them
through a sausage machine. Under the new proposals,
REFORMING