Tories announce expansion of 'work club' scheme for unemployed

The employment minister, Chris Grayling, today announced the expansion of a "work club" scheme to get the unemployed back into work. The move followed George Osborne's announcement of a cap on benefits earlier today . "Britain today has five million people claiming out of work benefits," Grayling told the Tory conference in Birmingham. "One in five households is entirely dependent on benefits, with no one working. "Nearly a million people of working age have never worked. It is nothing short of a national scandal." He blamed the problem on Labour and said welfare reform was at the top of the government's agenda, adding: "Go into every town or city centre up and down the country and you will find enterprising people from overseas who have managed to find jobs. "And we still have five million people here on out of work benefits. It's just madness." Grayling said the government "shouldn't try to do everything itself" and would "harness the skills" of individuals, businesses, the voluntary sector and local government. He added that the government would help work clubs, which would allow jobseekers to "work together and help each other", to get off the ground. In addition, the coalition would "launch a real drive to encourage the unemployed to look at volunteering as an option" in order to build up their experience and skills. He hailed the universal credit being introduced by the work and pensions secretary, Iain Duncan Smith, as "a key part of making work pay", and the government's decision to reassess all incapacity benefit claimants, apart from for those about to reach retirement age, from next week. From next spring, the government's Work Programme would "replace the haphazard mix of Labour schemes that cost billions and never worked" to provide "much better support for those on benefits to get them back into work", he said. The scheme will be administered by private and voluntary organisations. Grayling added: "We'll help people to get back on their feet again. But if they refuse that support, then they will lose their benefits – as simple as that."