Brown to 'tighten up' on jobless who refuse work

The Government is to extend its system of cutting benefits for unemployed people who refuse offers of work or training, Gordon Brown announced yesterday.

The Chancellor promised to bring forward measures in his pre-Budget report in November to "tighten up" the New Deal programme for the jobless in an attempt to put back into work the hardcore of long-term unemployed. Under the sanctions, people can lose their Jobseeker's Allowance for up to 26 weeks.

Mr Brown said: "We have made enormous advances with the New Deal. Two million people have benefited. But there are thousands who have fallen through the net – able to work but unwilling to do so.

"It is matching rights with responsibilities. We have a duty to restore employment levels in some of the communities where unemployment is still high, and also have a right to expect that where we provide opportunities to people who are long-term unemployed that they take them up."

A scheme in which the long-term unemployed are found jobs that they must take or lose their benefit,which is being tried in 20 areas, is expected to be extended nationwide. The Government is also phasing in "work-focused interviews" with a personal adviser.

The moves may prove controversial because tough sanctions already exist. Martin Barnes, director of the Child Poverty Action Group, demanded an assurancethat the new approach would not mean cuts in benefits for the disabled or lone parents.

Mr Brown insisted that the target would be the "registered unemployed". The Chancellor was speaking at the launch of an advertising campaign to publicise a shake-up of the system of tax credits for families, which takes effect next April.

He said the £13bn child tax credit would apply to nine out of 10 families, six million of them in all. To help middle-income as well as low-income families, the top-up benefit would help families with incomes of up to £58,000 a year. A further £325m would help with child care.

Mr Brown announced that £2bn would be transferred from fathers to mothers under the scheme because the new credit would be paid to the main carer rather the main earner as at present. Research showed that the money would then be more likely to be spent on the child.

"Our changes mean that, from next April, mothers who wish to leave work and be with their children at home but have found it financially difficult to do so will find it easier," Mr Brown said.

But David Willetts, the Tory spokesman on work and pensions, said: "We have been here before. Exactly three years ago, Gordon Brown launched an advertising campaign for the working families tax credit and announced a new crackdown on workshy young people. His policies failed last time and they will fail again."

Mr Barnes said later: "We are disappointed that the Government has still not been able to publish figures for the take-up rate for current tax credits. Estimates indicate that up to a third of households eligible for the working families tax credit are not receiving it. Take-up seems particularly low in London and among some ethnic-minority groups."