Response to welfare reform announcements

11 November 2011

Dr Eamonn Butler, Director of the Adam Smith Institute broadly welcomes Iain Duncan Smith's welfare reforms and adds:

"The government's simplification of the welfare rag-bag is long overdue. Boiling 51 different benefits down to one universal credit will eliminate many of the perverse incentives that make it daft for people to seek work.

If millions of East Europeans can find work in Britain, so can people who live here. It is just a case of having the incentive. Some of the poorest people face an effective tax rate of 90% when they take work and lose their benefits. This reform should have happened years ago.

Most people will be staggered that it has taken politicians so long to insist that people taking state benefits should be actively seeking work. Mrs Thatcher was saying this back in 1983. Gordon Brown in 1998 told us that his New Deal meant there was 'no option' for people to stay at home on benefits. And he told us the same again when the plan was reinvented a decade later. In these straitened times, people in work are simply refusing to carry the burden of those who could work, but won't.”

For more information please contact Sally Thompson, Communications Director on 020 7222 4995.

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Telegraph.co.uk: Benefit reforms can't force employers to hire the work-shy, say business groups

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Old Teaser

Written by Peter Hutchison

11 November 2010

The British Chamber of Commerce and the Federation of Small Business have suggested that the proposals being outlined today will have no influence on who businesses hire and fire.Unemployed workers are to be barred from claiming benefits for up to three years if they repeatedly refuse job offers under the biggest shake-up of the welfare system in 60 years.Anyone claiming unemployment benefit will have to sign a "three strikes and you're out" contract which will see the work-shy losing benefits if they fail to accept a job offer or refuse to apply for a position recommended by an employment adviser.

Iain Duncan Smith, the Work and Pensions Secretary, hopes the measures in his Welfare Paper will cut the number of workless households by 300,000 but business leaders suggested the proposals would have little effect.

Adam Marshall, director of policy and external affairs at the British Chamber of Commerce, said: “Businesses are telling us that they have a wide pool of applicants for many jobs and they want to get the best person they can.

"Businesses are in a position right now to be very choosy about who they hire. What the Government has to realise is that businesses will be creating the jobs rather than the public sector and what businesses will want are individuals who turn up to work enthusiastically and who gain the skills needed to succeed in that business.”

Eamonn Butler, of the Adam Smith Institute, an economic think-tank, said: "The proposed massive simplification in welfare, and eliminating the perverse incentives in the present ragbag of benefits, will be a powerful force in getting people back to work.

"The biggest problem will be with younger, inexperienced and unskilled workers, who could continue to be priced out of work by the minimum wage.

"Employers simply do not want to hire people that they think are not worth minimum wages."

Published in Telegraph.co.uk here.

Telegraph.co.uk: Benefit reforms can't force employers to hire the work-shy, say business groups

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Old Teaser

11 November 2010

In this piece in The Telegraph Eamonn Butler argues that a simplification of the welfare system and liberalisation of labour markets will help to get people back in to work. 

Published in Telegraph.co.uk here.

Library of Economics & Liberty: Primer on Austrian Economics

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Old Teaser

27 October 2010

Arnold Kling reviews Eamonn Butler's Primer on Austrian Economics at the Library of Economics and Liberty.

Read in full in the Library of Economics and Liberty here. 

Guardian.co.uk: Ed Miliband's New Labour economics

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Old Teaser

25 October 2010

Eamonn Butler writes on guardian.co.uk that Miliband's approach to business seems to be one of picking winners and interventions that would undermine business confidence.

Published on Guardian Comment is Free here. 

Telegraph.co.uk: George Osborne has only tinkered with the welfare state

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Old Teaser

21 October 2010

Tom Clougherty argues that the government's spending review does not go far enough in The Telegraph and that what is needed is a scaling back of the state's functions.

Published on Telegraph.co.uk here.

Sam on Russia Today on the spending cuts

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Old Teaser

22 October 2010

Published in Russia Today here.

Daily Mail: Foreign aid to increase by 37%: Osborne finds an extra £4bn to help poor countries

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Old Teaser

21 October 2010

Sam Bowman comments on an increase in development spending while vital services are being cut in the Daily Mail.

Published in full in the Daily Mail here.

Tom discussing the CSR on CNBC

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Old Teaser

 20 October 2010

Published on CNBC here.

Tom on BBC World Service reacting to the CSR

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Old Teaser

20 October 2010

Tom Clougherty reacts to the Comprehensive Spending Review on BBC World Service's 'Europe Today' programme.

You can listen to him here (at around the 45minute mark).