The Tories need to stop stigmatising people on benefits

By James Purnell

When Karen Matthews was convicted, the Tories used the opportunity to demonise everyone on benefits. They argued that everyone on benefits was the next potential Karen Matthews. This is the same old Tory approach of being happy to stigmatise people out of work but not to help them back in to work.

Now that Karen Matthews has been sent to jail I hope every minute she spends behind bars she thinks about the consequences of her actions.

She committed an evil crime. The fact that she was on benefits neither explains nor excuses it.

But those who want to write off everybody on benefits because of the sick actions of one individual are wrong. They are wrong because it just lets her off the hook of her responsibility for her actions. And it stereotypes millions of people and thereby makes it harder for them to get back in to work.

So, for me, the lesson from the Moorside estate where she lived is fundamentally different.

We saw the whole community pull together and spend 24 days searching high and low for what they thought was a lost girl.

And we saw decent people on the estate recoil in horror when they realised someone in their estate had done something so repellent.

Because the truth is, whatever David Cameron says, people on benefits are not like Karen Matthews. There are struggling families who need support. Those people need our help but in return they must take responsibility to help themselves.

That’s why Labour is shaking up the welfare state so nearly everyone on benefits is preparing for work. Benefits are there to help you back in to work, not to be an alternative to work.

We will do everything we can to help people who lose their jobs.

Incredibly, the Tories would cut the money we are now investing to help people back in to work. They’d spend nearly £2 billion less because they think we should be cutting public spending.

Estates like Moorside are not unique. Up and down the country, communities were shattered by the last recessions. Cameron would make the same mistakes the Tories did in the past – doing nothing to help and doing nothing to make people take up that help.

I am disappointed that Cameron’s Conservatives are opposing us on our transformation of the benefits system. They think that drug addicts should be able to get benefits without getting treatment. They think that workless parents should be left for years, even decades, without having to prepare for work. How would that help them?

We want a system that offers real help for people who play by the rules.

The Tories are no more prepared to start helping people than they are to stop stigmatising them.

I hope David Cameron stops pointing the finger and gets serious about welfare reform.

That means that they stop posturing. And that they stop chasing headlines with vague promises and start backing real, specific policies.

They can start by voting for our Welfare Reform Bill next week which will create a ‘something for something’ culture in the benefits system.

Next Tuesday in Parliament, we’ll see whether the Tories are prepared to do that.

For the sake of every family on estates like Moorside, it’s time to get serious.