‘Tories will get tough on Valleys’ unemployed’

Mar 21 2008 by Jean Parry, South Wales Echo

THE TORIES have promised tough new measures to make the unemployed in South Wales’ Valleys get work.

Pointing to figures showing wards where 50 per cent of working-age people are claiming the dole, shadow Work and Pensions Secretary Chris Grayling told the Echo a Conservative government would launch a crackdown to beat the problem.

Speaking after a two-day visit to Merthyr and Caerphilly, Mr Grayling said the Tories would make long-term benefits claimants work five-day weeks.

He said: “This is a multi-generational problem. We have to break people out of a cycle which is being passed down through generations.

“Most of the people out of work in Merthyr and Caerphilly are people whose parents didn’t work and who haven’t the experience of work, or schools in some cases.”

According to the party’s figures, the worst wards for high unemployment in the region are Twyn Carno and St James, both in Caerphilly.

In those areas, 53 per cent and 50 per cent of the working-age population are out of work and claiming dole.

But when the Echo spoke to people in those wards they said they did want to find jobs but were unable to.

James Elliott, 21, of Hill Street, Rhymney, said: “I’m claiming unemployment but I want to work and I’m hoping to go to college at Ystrad Mynach this year. It is depressing not working. I did work in the Co-op for a time but haven’t had a job since.”

Kevin Clark, 47, of Ty Coch, Rhymney, chairman of the local allotment society, said: “I’ve not worked for more than six years because I’m on sickness benefit after breaking my leg quite badly. I was lucky not to lose it.

“I last worked in Asda at Merthyr and would think at my age I will work again but there is nothing here in Rhymney, they have shut everything. From Bargoed up the valley you notice the difference.”

The Tories are not the only ones promising to get more into work.

In recent weeks, new Work and Pensions Secretary James Purnell has followed in the footsteps of his predecessor Peter Hain by promising a crackdown on unemployment.

Mr Grayling said the Conservatives would succeed where the Labour Government had failed primarily because of how the party would fund their programmes.

He said that anyone who had been out of work for more than two years would have to attend job seekers’ programmes five days a week.

He said: “We would look at nearly full-time ‘return to work’ programmes for those people who had been on jobseekers’ allowance for more than two years.

“They would be participating in some form of work every day.”

david.james@mediawales.co.uk