Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith has claimed that unemployed people living on sink estates, could be relocated to areas with job vacancies as part of a Government plan to break up Britain's 'poverty ghettos'. Duncan Smith said the move was designed to help those 'trapped' on council estates in unemployment blackspots.
Duncan Smith of course uses the term “Council Estate” rather than social housing ignoring the fact that many of these are now run by housing associations. because this has a more negative association.
This Idea has come from a member of a government whose plans to cap housing benefit will be to effectively evict families from more affluent areas where this is work , forcing them to find a home in the very “council estates “ where the housing allowances generally fall under the cap and there are no local jobs.
Before Duncan Smith’s statement. I had a theory that the Con-Lib plan was a form of gerrymandering forcing the unemployed to live in areas of high unemployment and low rent. Where the people either didn't vote for in elections for any Party; But definitely do not vote Tory or Lib Dem. Duncan Smith, however seems to be contradicting this suspicion.
Or is he? I suspect that what he is advocating will be the cherry picking of the most able of the unemployed who are victims of a form of “Post Code Lottery”. when applying for jobs. Where H.R.people discriminate against people from the so called "sink estates", or transport to work is often detrimental.because of poor public transport.
What we need to combat unemployment in such areas, is an effective strategy in these areas based on the cooperative model of Mondragon in the Basque country. Such a venture I believe would be particularly successful in Wales . Ideally such ventures should grow organically, but we can't afford such a luxury because action is needed now and the venture needs to grow fast. So we need government innovation and intervention to do carry this out. We could start such a cooperative in Merthyr Tydfil where I believe the remoteness from the paces of actual employment is part of the cause of areas of high unemployment there.We need to see how to take jobs to the people not people to the jobs naked capitalism cannot and will not do this.
Will any Party have the courage to propose this in their Manifesto for the next Welsh Assembly?
No comments:
Post a Comment