JAMES PURNELL, the Work and Pensions Secretary, has described his package of benefit reforms as the biggest shake-up since the Beveridge Report heralded the creation of the modern welfare state back in the 1940s.
People on Incapacity Benefit will have to undergo independent medical tests to see if there is any work they could do; people who have been unemployed for long periods will have to join "work for dole" schemes; lone parents with children aged seven
or more will be expected to seek work; and jobless drug addicts will only receive benefits if they accept treatment.
Mr Purnell says the reforms put responsibility "right at the heart of the welfare state" and will help transform the lives of millions of people across the country.
Critics say the changes will increase the exclusion of some of the poorest and most vulnerable people in society and perpetuate the harmful stereotypes of people living in poverty as work-shy scroungers.
The timing of the launch of the welfare reforms, just days before the crucial Glasgow East by-election, seems at first sight rather perverse, given that the constituency has a high proportion of benefit claimants. The city is even singled out as one possible area to pilot the changes.
At least it suggests those politicians who claimed Chancellor Alistair Darling deliberately scheduled his postponement of the 2p fuel duty increase to boost Labour's campaign were wide of the mark – it now looks as if the Westminster machine pays little heed to what's going on in Scotland, even when it's a knife-edge by-election.
There is a danger the new approach to benefits stigmatises people unfairly and is seen as handing out punishment rather than offering the support which people out of work need.
But the welfare changes may not be all bad news for Labour in Glasgow. The demand that benefit recipients should work for their money may come straight from the Tory drawing board and be aimed at wooing disillusioned middle-class voters. But sometimes the people living closest to a problem are the ones who feel most strongly that it needs to be tackled.
And if the voters in Glasgow East are unhappy with the way the current benefit system is operating, they may decide to back a party promising to clean it up.
At the same time, those responsible for any abuses may be among those least likely to take the trouble to vote on Thursday.
Labour could find a welfare crackdown is just the job.
The full article contains 427 words and appears in Edinburgh Evening News newspaper.
