Thursday 31 October 2013

The Supreme Court ruling

It sparked a lot of argument yesterday.  What had the Supreme Court actually ruled?  A lot of people thought that the DWP would have to repay any money they took away in sanctions while the regime was illegal.  But no, the retrospective legislation took care of that.  There was even confusion about who had appealed the High Court ruling, and on what grounds.
The best article in the press was, naturally, in the Guardian.  Joshua Rozenberg used to be the BBC's legal expert, and knows what he's talking about.  He points out that was Iain Duncan Smith who appealed.  He had no need to, because the retrospective legislation was already in operation.  The original decision was that the whole basis of the workfare schemes was unlawful because i) it hadn't been put to Parliament and ii) the information given to claimants was inadequate.  That's what Smith appealed.  And he lost.  The Supreme Court upheld that decision.  But, as Rozenberg points out, Smith's immediate response was: "We are very pleased that the supreme court today unanimously upheld our right to require those claiming Jobseeker's Allowance to take part in programmes which will help get them into work."  Rozenberg picks up the "very pleased" and comments, "Pleased that it had lost an unnecessary appeal at no small cost to the taxpayer?"  He quotes the ruling:"...it is rather unattractive for the executive to be taking up court time and public money to establish that a regulation is valid, when it has already taken up parliamentary time to enact legislation which retroactively validates the regulation."
To be fair (it pains me to say this) the lawyers for Cait Reilly and Jamie Wilson did make a cross-appeal about the legality of workfare, and lost that, so IDS could claim that that's what he was talking about.  But that's almost irrelevant.  Esther McVey (who has, in a very short time, become very irritating) was trotted out to repeat IDS's spurious claim and confuse the issue.
On the subject of workfare generally; the government has to maintain the fiction that it is not work, it's training, work experience or whatever, but not work.  Because that would have to be paid.  No court in this country is going to go against that.  It might be that the only recourse is the European Court of Human Rights.
A final thought.  Could we start a petition to impeach Iain Duncan Smith?

12 comments:

  1. It almost compares to making a complaint against the DWP/JCP/WP you spend a lot of time and the very limited cash resources that you have,against an organisation(s) that have far greater resources and it does not effect them personally and when (you if) win? you get back what was rightfully yours in the the first place and perhaps £50,so as it costs them very little either way(personally) and the majority cannot afford it they are playing the odds!

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  2. In the late 1980s (yes I'm that old) I took part in Employment Training - later called Training For Work - and received an additional payment of ten pounds as well as benefits. We worked towards gaining NVQs. I ddn't gain work as a result of these programmes and can only sympathise with those of you who have to "sign-on" and prove you are actively seeking work.

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    1. I was a trainer on that programme and we treated people with respect, sent them alonf to interviews only if they had a chance of actually getting a full-time job they wanted. We paid for all costs incurred.
      Of the hundreds of clients I remember, very few were referred back to the JC for non-attendance or whatever. Also offred a proper NVQ qual - nothing like the WP rubbish now thats for sure.

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  3. "Could we start a petition to impeach Iain Duncan Smith?"
    Try this one.
    http://www.change.org/en-GB/petitions/speaker-of-the-house-of-commons-expel-iain-duncan-smith-from-the-house-of-commons

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    1. That one is out of date now, and not well-directed. That sounds critical - it's not meant to be. Impeachment has a long history, and I think is more applicable.

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  4. IDS has created a right old legal pickle for himself and Parliament. According to Lord Pannick (who is a QC) in the House of Lords, IDS cannot validate unlawful secondary legislation via enacting yet more secondary legislation. According to Lord Pannick, the only way to correct the legal mess contrived by IDS is via Parliament passing new primary legislation instead.

    However, new primary legislation cannot be passed without full & proper prior debate etc in both Houses of Parliament.

    Therefore to try to act in the weasel fashion so beloved by IDS is an insult to HM The Queen, whose own constitutional role is to protect her subjects from any chicanery by her Ministers.

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    1. I agree. I still think there is some way to go before Workfare is implemented. Firstly, as you say, there is the legal matter. Secondly, the charities have said that they will not take part in a scheme were the threat of sanctions exists i.e were it is not truely voluntary.Thirdly, I believe that that TU's will challenge Workfare because it undermines NI legislation (see below).

      I am one of the long-term unemployed and I expect to be one of the first to be put on Workfare. I hope it will help me find work but unless it is a constructive placement with genuine training and a job at the end of it I remain to be convinced. Ultimately, long-term unemployment will not decrease until more jobs are created and I find it staggering that this fact, the lack of jobs, is not being discussed or addressed.

      It seems to me that the Tories and their supporters simply want to punish the unemployed because they do not want to accept responsibility for their economic failures.

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    2. Regarding Jobs,a simple search on the UJM site shows just how Jobs are inflated,do you really think that the country requires 947 self employed "Door to door Wine sales persons?" 2678 Double Glazing field operatives, 1629 Catalogue distributors,all self employed and the list goes on and on,I recently applied for the biggest online warehouse operator(Ama?) 62 individual positions listed under 2 temp agencies,I applied to each individual ad and presented this as proof of my job search it was deemed "unacceptable" as it only counted as 2 searches,but was counted as 62 in jobs available by the DWP. Fiddling the figures yet again!

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    3. Similar to dodgy marketing vacancies posted in the local press. Two or three differently worded ads scattered around the page for the same position.

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    4. Workfare already exists. It's already here.

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  5. It is interesting how the debate has shifted from 'how can we get the unemployed back to work' to one of 'how can we get the unemployed to contribute to their benefits', completely ignoring the fact that most of unemployed will have paid NI and the objective of any policy aimed at the unemployed should be to help them get back to into work.

    There in no evidence that Workfare helps the long-term unemployed back into work. The problem with the UK economy is that there is a lack of jobs, something the Tories have done ZERO to address and something that cannot be corrected by Workfare.

    Workfare is simply a punishment. And to all those people who think it is a good idea remember the Tories will not stop here. Workfare in effect renders the NI scheme null and void and that will have serious consequences for the NHS and the state pension.

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  6. The Supreme Court Judgment is here:

    http://www.supremecourt.gov.uk/decided-cases/docs/UKSC_2013_0064_Judgment.pdf

    My guess is the Cabinet panicked as a result of the earlier Judgment of the Court of Appeal. Therefore, they probably authorized the unconstitutional idea of correcting IDS’ original errors of law by permitting the hastily-contrived, retroactive further secondary legislation rushed in by IDS and Mark Hoban. It is arguable that the orginal errors were actually made by “those civil Service half-wits,” not by IDS himself.

    IDS’ inane policy ideas about ‘Welfare Reform’ for people aged under 65 are very popular amongst those members of the public who are likely to vote Tory in 2015. The Benefits recipients aged under 65 are irrelevant because this ‘silent minority’ are unlikely to vote Tory anyway and this minority group is not large enough to be able to alter the outcome in 2015.

    Also, David Cameron prefers to kick cans down the road rather than dealing with anything fully and thoroughly instead. IDS is unusually stubborn and is convinced of his own genius. IDS is also a die-hard right winger with powerful allies, so DC does not want IDS chucking his toys out of his pram.

    There was no real need for the govt to go to the Supreme Court.. I suspect that the DWP’s in-house lawyers did that reluctantly in order to prevent yet more tantrums by IDS. Ask the Supreme Court to deal with the matter quickly and then (hopefully) put the whole thing to bed for the reasonably foreseeable future, I suspect. It is unlikely that IDS will be succeeded by another obsessive ideologue with a fondness for tantrums unless he is allowed to have his own way.

    So! Kick the can down the road some more, why not?! The present govt excels at that, after all .

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