On Tuesday it was tax credits. And now the Public Accounts Committee delivers a boot to another of Gordon Brown’s pet projects – the New Deal. The findings should (but won’t?) put pay to those claims that the UK’s achieved “full employment”. Some six million people now live in homes where “no-one has a job and ‘benefits are a way of life’”. Put another way: one-in-six households are now benefit dependent.
And then there are the pots and pots of taxpayers’ cash that have been used to reach this unedifying position. Those households cost some £12.7 billion a year in public money. One New Deal scheme found jobs for only 61 people in a year, at a cost of £1,100 each.
The brand of welfare reform championed by David Freud gets more people into work and at a lower cost. At last the Government is shifting to this approach, but maybe – as
Get Britain's best politics newsletters
Register to get The Spectator's insight and opinion straight to your inbox. You can then read two free articles each week.
Already a subscriber? Log in
Comments
Join the debate for just £1 a month
Be part of the conversation with other Spectator readers by getting your first three months for £3.
UNLOCK ACCESS Just £1 a monthAlready a subscriber? Log in