This week I sought an early debate on the appalling injustices of the Atos work capability assessments from the Commons backbench business committee. I’m very pleased that the committee has told me that “it is keen to see a debate on this issue, and so hopes to allocate time in January 2013″.
I hope therefore in the next month to be able to collect the fullest dossier I can not only of examples where the system has patently failed, but also of statements of how the system should be reformed, not only in technical application but radically. It is perfectly clear that though the first two Harrington reviews may have produced some minor improvements in procedure, the fundamentals of the system remain intact, indefensible though they are.
As the first pilot schemes for getting claimants off Incapacity Benefit and into work have judged that 70% were fit for work, the real attitude of the Tories towards unemployment is becoming painfully clear. Their Work First model of active labour market policy is defined by increasingly punitive approaches to conditionality and compulsion, the tightening of access to working-age benefits, and contracted-out services that prioritise fitting the workless into any job available. All this in the context of rising unemploment and the lack of decent quality job opportunities throughout the depressed regions. But the real scam is only now coming to light in the Government’s announcement of who it has awarded contracts to for forcing people back into work, any work, even while the Government is itself contracting the economy and shrinking the jobs base.