Are the workhouses still in operation?

You may recall from A Christmas Carol that a couple of charity collectors knocked on Ebenezer Scrooge’s door at Christmas to ask for a bit of money for the poor. Here’s part of the dialogue:

First Collector: At this festive time of year, Mr. Scrooge, it is more than usually desirable that we should make some slight provision for the poor and destitute.
Ebenezer: Are there no prisons?
First Collector: Plenty of prisons.
Ebenezer: And the union workhouses – are they still in operation?
First Collector: They are. I wish I could say they were not.
Ebenezer: Oh, from what you said at first I was afraid that something had happened to stop them in their useful course. I’m very glad to hear it.

Well, the workhouses were indeed abolished at the beginning of the Twentieth Century, but it looks like the Coalition Government is going to bring them in again under the guise of getting the recipients of long-term benefit to do something useful to society to prepare them for gainful employment. As the Chief Secretary to the Treasury (a LibDem, no less) noted, it was intended to “support and encourage” and to get people back into the habit of getting up and going out to work. It also meant those who did it could demonstrate their employability to prospective employers.

There is a Puritan streak even here in England, which was famously hostile enough to the Puritans in the 17th Century to drive them to New England, where they flourished for many decades. People who receive welfare benefits, according to this school of thought, are almost all ungrateful scroungers. Thus, we need to ensure that they do something useful for society besides consume beer and fags and make babies destined to step into their shoes one day.

Now I am not saying that people who receive welfare are all down-and-outers who would gladly take any job that is offered to them. There are people who have decided that welfare is a better way to fund their lifestyles than working for a living. The Royle Family is a fictional example. I do not believe that most people on welfare are scroungers and layabouts. They are single parents whose partners have left them with children to care for. They are people with criminal records or drug problems who cannot hold down a job (when and if they can find one). They are people who have been on Jobseeker’s Allowance (=US “unemployment benefit”) for too long and move onto the long-term unemployed lists and thus onto welfare.

The Government, I believe, sees a double solution in this move. First, they get menial social jobs done by people who are currently at leisure and getting benefits. The kinds of jobs that the Work and Pensions Secretary have mentioned are such things as cleaning the streets, raking leaves, and the like. Local councils used to actually hire people at real wages to do these jobs. Now they’ll get them done for nearly nothing. Hooray for the ratepayers! Second, the Government believes (although it will not say it) that threatening welfare recipients with menial jobs will force them into taking real jobs with real pay.

Bushwah! The Wikipedia article on workhouses sums up beautifully both the Victorian attitude and this current proposal: “The workhouse system began to evolve in the 17th century as a way for parishes to reduce the cost to ratepayers of providing poor relief.” That is why they are bringing about this scheme.

Here’s what will happen. First, local councils will end up administering this program, and paying administrative costs for the privilege of getting unemployed people to sweep the pavement. This will not please the unions which currently represent the sanitation workers (along with other menial council workers). Second, if these new welfare workers injure themselves or others while on the job, who’s going to pay for it? Will council insurance premiums go up to cover this? Or will the Coalition Government step in to pay damages for any injury. Third, cutting people off from welfare for missing their “job” will also penalise those who depend on them for their livelihoods, such as children or perhaps elderly relatives.

So what is the Coalition Government supposed to do: let the scroungers continue scrounging? Of course not. Instead of pandering to the Little Englanders among us, they really should have tackled this another way—by helping to identify and cure the causes of the chronic unemployment. So for single parents, bring in better child care facilities. For ex-offenders, assistance in finding real jobs and laws against unreasonable discrimination against them in offering jobs. For the long-term unemployed, retraining for another job. And for everyone, job-creation schemes aimed at both the public and private sectors.

So instead of making Jim Royle sweep the streets, and Denise Royle answer telephones in the job-centre, perhaps the Government ought to concentrate on helping to provide job opportunities for those who are out of work, and provide training and encouragement (of the right sort) to those who have never worked, or who are at present unsuitable for work for reasons not health-related. These things are too hard for the government to do, so they are falling back on the Victorian workhouses. Even Margaret Thatcher at her worst wasn’t going to try to bring them back.

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