Former home secretary David Blunkett has said the government “doesn’t owe you” if people “can’t be bothered” to work.
Lord Blunkett, who was also work and pensions secretary under Tony Blair, said some young people are facing pressure from their families to stay out of work because they can lose their housing benefit or allowance once they have a job, even if it is low paid.
Currently, claimants’ housing benefit is reduced by 65p for every £1 of income above the amount they are eligible to receive for housing.
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The Labour peer, 77, said the government needs to create a balance where it is “absolutely clear that getting up in the morning and going to work and having a work ethic pays”.
“If you can’t be bothered, then I’m afraid we don’t owe you,” he told The Sunday Telegraph.
“We have an obligation to help people.
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“We don’t have an obligation to help people if they’re not prepared to help themselves.”
He added entire households should face losing their housing benefit if they do not look for work.
Lord Blunkett said he supports the government’s push to “get Britain working” but said ministers will have to take a more radical approach if it wants to achieve its 80% employment rate target.
The peer, who grew up in poverty in the 50s, said there needs to be a “something for something” attitude to benefits and called for the system to be more like the New Deal the Labour government under Sir Tony introduced in 1998 to help the long-term unemployed.
It helped Lord Blunkett’s son to find work, which he said “was a lifeline”.
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“And from there he went on, not only to get a job, but to get a postgraduate qualification,” he told The Sunday Telegraph.
“So it was the start of an understanding of what he felt would suit him in terms of future earning and learning.”
The peer criticised Labour’s “lack of narrative”, as he put it, around its vision for the economy.
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He said Chancellor Rachel Reeves’s claim the Tories had left a £22bn black hole was right but was poorly executed, especially the removal of the winter fuel payment from about 10 million pensioners.
There has been a “miserableness” that went too far, he added.
But he blamed it on “Treasury orthodoxy”, saying they always look at the short term and have repeatedly told governments to means-test the winter fuel allowance.
“Some politicians have been tempted, but none have followed the advice – until now,” he added.
“It was almost as though, by accident, [Labour] were going out to be unpopular, and that is not a good start.”
Lord Blunkett also revealed he does not want to retire.
“I know that if I stop, I will die. If I cease to have a structure and a rhythm to my life, then everything will fall apart and I will simply deteriorate,” he said.
