A police officer outside the headquarters of the Conservative Party in London on Thursday; the building was damaged during protests over proposals to cut education spending and increase tuition.
By SARAH LYALL and ALAN COWELL
Published: November 11, 2010
LONDON — A day after violent protests against government proposals to cut education spending and steeply increase tuition for university students, the government unveiled proposals on Thursday for welfare reforms that could penalize Britons deemed to be work-shy and stir further resistance.
Related
-
London Tuition Hike Protests Turn Violent (November 11, 2010)
In one particularly contentious proposal, unemployed people would be stripped of a $100-a-week job-seekers allowance for up to three years if they turn down three job offers — a proposal that drew protests from civic groups. Some economists called the sanctions the harshest ever imposed by a British government.
“Changes to the benefits system proposed today will expose people to the risk of destitution,” said Kate Wareing from Oxfam, the aid organization. “Removing benefits and leaving people with no income will result in extreme hardship for them and their families.”
In Parliament, Iain Duncan Smith, the minister for works and pensions, said he had planned reforms to provide a single, universal payment to replace around 30 different forms of housing, unemployment and tax credits supposed to help jobless and disabled people.
“There will be no losers,” he said. Referring to some 4.5 million people who were receiving unemployment benefits even before the global economic crisis, he said that the British population included “a group of people who have been left behind, even in periods of growth.”
“These reforms are about bringing them back in,” he said.
Like the proposed cuts in education spending, the welfare measures are part of a vast austerity program announced last month by the coalition government of Conservatives and Liberal Democrats, cutting public spending by $130 billion by 2015.
The students’ protest on Wednesday was the largest street demonstration against the plans, and the most visible expression of the turmoil surrounding them. Unions and public employees have promised more demonstrations and strikes as details of the cuts become clear.
The debate in Britain, pitting advocates of austerity against those favoring a greater emphasis on economic growth, mirrors similar divisions in the United States and in many parts of Europe, where the impact of the global economic crisis is testing the ability of many people to cope with reductions in generous benefits.
Only weeks ago, France was locked in strikes and street protests over a government plan to raise the minimum retirement age to 62 from 60. Some Britons are now questioning whether their government’s austerity program will inspire similar unrest.
“This protest — in both its peaceful and more violent dimensions — is a sign of a country unafraid to fight back, for the first time in a long time,” Nina Power, a lecturer in philosophy, wrote in The Guardian newspaper,
Speaking at a center for homeless people in north London on Thursday, Mr. Duncan Smith said the authorities would support “those who are vulnerable and unable to work” and would ensure that “for those out of work who are capable of working, our reforms mean it will always pay you to take a job.”
But, he warned, “this is a two-way street.”
“We expect people to play their part, too,” Mr. Duncan Smith said. “Under this government, choosing not to work if you can work is not an option.”
The reforms are to be introduced from 2013 to 2018.
Mr. Duncan Smith estimated that the reforms would save up to $2.4 billion a year in reduced benefit fraud and administrative costs. And, he said, they would also benefit 2.5 million households by providing higher entitlements, while the number of households surviving solely on government benefits could be reduced by around 300,000.
Douglas Alexander, the opposition Labour spokesman on work and pensions issues, said in Parliament: “If the government gets this right, we will support them.” But he argued that with unemployment high, there were few jobs available. “Without work, this won’t work,” he told a television interviewer.
The British government offers an array of benefits ranging from allocations to the disabled to burial payments. But some proposed cuts — most notably in benefits paid to parents to help with the cost of raising their children — have already run into passionate opposition.
The current system is complex and, according to the authorities, prone to not only to fraud but also to what Mr. Duncan Smith called a “dependency culture.”
A complex set of tax rules also means that people who resume work after long periods of unemployment end up with less money in their pockets, Mr. Duncan Smith said.
Reforms in the benefits system — a cornerstone of Britain’s welfare state — began under the previous Labour government and have been marked by efforts among politicians to secure consensus.
But Thursday’s announcement came with Britain focused on the potential social impact of the government’s promise to introduce radical changes
On Wednesday, protesters trying to the storm the building that houses the Conservative Party, at 30 Millbank, in Westminster, scuffled with police officers, set off flares, burned placards, threw eggs, bottles and other projectiles, and shattered windows. A small group of demonstrators, some with ski masks obscuring their faces, climbed to the roof of a nearby building, waving anarchist flags and chanting “Tory scum.”
In response, the Conservative prime minister, David Cameron, attending the G-20 economic summit in South Korea on Thursday, promised a stern response. “What is not part of our democracy is that sort of violence and lawbreaking,” he said. “It’s not right. It’s not acceptable and I hope that the full force of the law will be used.”
An estimated 52,000 people from across the country also massed near Parliament on Wednesday to condemn the government’s education proposals, which would allow universities to charge £6,000, or $9,600, to £9,000, or $14,400, in tuition a year, up from a cap of £3,290, or $5,264.
Tuition is a politically sensitive subject in Britain, where universities are heavily subsidized by the government. Until the late 1990s, when the Labour government introduced tuition, students paid nothing. But the current government has announced plans to cut teaching grants to universities and said it had no choice but to raise tuition.
Sarah Lyall reported from London, and Alan Cowell from ParFacing Austerity, Britain Proposes Cuts in Welfare and Education - NYTimes.com
No comments:
Post a Comment