You have a ‘responsibility’ to look for work, UK minister says

We spoke to Labour MP and Work and Pensions Secretary, Liz Kendall.

We began by asking when will the target of an at least 80 percent employment rate be hit.

Liz Kendall: That’s a decade-long ambition and it is really, really ambitious. It would put us right at the top of the international league table, two million more people into work. We’ve got to join up work, health and skills to get Britain back to health and back to work.

Paul McNamara: Aren’t you making that 80 percent target harder to achieve, though, by raising national insurance contributions for employers?

Liz Kendall: I understand that businesses have pressure on them. But I would also say to businesses, if you have ever gone in to run a business or a public sector organisation and you are spending more than you earn, you’re never going to succeed. You’ve got to balance the books. That’s what Rachel Reeves did.

Paul McNamara: I understand the pitch, but the CBI, the Confederation of British Industry, has said that tax rises in your budget have made it ‘more difficult for firms to take a chance’. That’s to take a chance on an employee, let alone an employee with more complex needs. So aren’t you undermining your own policy here?

Liz Kendall: I don’t think so, because I think at the heart of the budget was just levelling with the public to say we’re not balancing the books.

Paul McNamara: Earlier this year, the previous government, the Conservatives, announced changes to the work capability assessments aimed at reducing the bill by £1.3 billion. Are you keeping those changes in place?

Liz Kendall: We will make the savings, but we will bring forward our own reforms to the sickness and disability system.

Paul McNamara: But you’re still looking at £1.3 billion being slashed from the bill?

Liz Kendall: We will make those savings. But I think the system does need reform. And I’m very, I want to be very careful about this, because there will be millions of people watching who’ll be worried. And I don’t blame them for being worried after 14 years of the Tories. They’re worried about their benefits. But many disabled people will say to me, firstly, they face big barriers to getting into work. Secondly, that the system feels awful when you’re going through it. But I also think the system, there’s two other big issues with the system. The first is this sort of very narrow categorisation between those who can work and those who can’t. When many people will say their health condition fluctuates.

Paul McNamara: So do you think there are people that can work that aren’t working?

Liz Kendall: I think that there are periods in your life when your problem becomes worse and you have to take a break. And we need to have a system that better recognises that. And the second really important thing is that 90 percent of people who are off work due to sickness, 90 percent of them, get back within the first year. So that first year of support is really important. But currently the system doesn’t pile in with that help to keep you in work, or get you back to work.

Paul McNamara: But you’re still looking at a massive reduction in the welfare bill. The Resolution Foundation says that more than 400,000 people could lose as much as £400 a month. That will put them into poverty. You’ll be responsible for putting people into poverty.

Liz Kendall: Those were the Conservatives’ proposals, not ours.

Paul McNamara: But you’re still going to shed the £1.3 billion from the bill?

Liz Kendall: We will bring forward our own proposals, which start with the very different premise, which is believing in the equal rights of disabled people, including to work.

Paul McNamara: The white paper mentions ‘mutual obligations’, then goes on to say that ‘all this will be underpinned by a clear expectation that jobseekers do what they can to look for work’. If they don’t, what then? Sanctions?

Liz Kendall: On the youth guarantee, we’ve been really honest about that, to say we will bust a gut to transform the opportunities for you to be earning or learning. But in return, you have a responsibility to take them up, and that does mean conditions in the system. And if people repeatedly refuse to engage, that will mean sanctions.

Paul McNamara: Looking through this report, you’re putting a lot of onus here on prisons, on the NHS, on local authorities. All systems that are creaking at the seams at the moment. What faith can the nation have that you will actually be able to deliver any of this?

Liz Kendall: We’ve got to join this up. It is not rocket science to say we could have much better closer working between these different parts of the system, because you know what? The young people who have been excluded or haven’t got on at school who drop out, who then don’t get work. These are the root causes of the problem that we’ve got to tackle. We’ve got to join up that support. We’ve got to shift the focus to prevention.

Paul McNamara: These are lofty ambitions.

Liz Kendall: It is. But, you know, I am ambitious. I’m in politics to succeed. And that’s what I intend to do.