Iain Duncan Smith has called for social tenants to be more prepared to move to find work where none exists where they live. However, nowhere has concern over the plan provoked such negative reaction to the Government's position than across Scotland and Wales.
“Get on your bike” was the advice handed out by Norman Tebbit to the unemployed in the 1980s. Now, in 2010, in a Telegraph interview his successor as MP for Chingford and Wood Green, the new work and pensions secretary Iain Duncan Smith, has called for social tenants to be more prepared to move to find work where none exists where they live.
However, nowhere has concern over the plan provoked such negative reaction to the Government’s position than across Scotland and Wales.
Scotland
In 2002, following his now famous visit to the Easterhouse council estate in Glasgow, Mr Duncan Smith, as leader of the Conservatives at the time, told his party that it needed to address the social deprivation that he witnessed on his visit. He had said:
“It’s about being a party that doesn’t just drive past Easterhouse on the motorway. If politicians cannot help the millions of people on estates like Easterhouse then politics has failed.”
At the time, the Herald reported it as his attempt to dump his party’s Thatcherite past. However, following his latest proposals, the Tories’ main political opposition in Scotland, Labour and the Scottish National Party, concluded that Mr Duncan-Smith is taking the Tories back to the past.
For Labour’s Iain Gray, the Secretary of State’s remarks suggest a lack of understanding about Scotland. He said:
“Iain Duncan Smith’s comments show how little the Tories understand the reality of life for those seeking work or living on low incomes. His choice of language simply echoes Norman Tebbit’s ‘get on your bike’ insult, showing that the Tories have not changed since the time of Margaret Thatcher.
“Families cannot move around the country every time a parent is out of work. We have to create jobs here in Scotland. That is why cancelling the Future Jobs Fund was an outrageous decision, made worse by the budget decisions which will cost another 100,000 jobs.”
Meanwhile, the SNP’s spokesperson on work and pensions, Eilidh Whiteford, sought to tie in the announcement with a wider attack on the Government’s broader economic policies, saying:
“Instead of endangering economic recovery with short-sighted cuts and reverting to policies which proved disastrous in the 1980s, the new coalition Government should be investing in growth and job creation across the UK.”
Wales
In Wales, which earlier this month saw the number out of work fall, the Assembly Government has expressed its concerns that the Department for Work and Pensions does not fully understand Devolution, particularly its responsibilities for housing policy, with a frank admittance that education minister Leighton Andrews had requested a meeting with Mr Duncan Smith.
A spokesman for the Government said:
“The [minister] responsible for relations with the Department of Work and Pensions, Leighton Andrews, last week asked for a meeting with Mr Iain Duncan Smith out of concern that DWP Ministers may not fully understand the different processes operating in Wales, post-devolution.”
Responding to the criticism, Conservative shadow housing minister in Cardiff Bay, Mark Isherwood, said:
“Iain Duncan Smith highlights one possible practical solution to a real problem facing people at a time of housing crisis and massive waiting lists across England and Wales.
“The new UK Government has committed itself to a respect agenda which acknowledges devolution and pledges to work in co-operation with the devolved administrations.”
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