College experience confirms need for welfare reform
17th July 2008
Margot James attended end of year and Fiftieth Birthday celebrations at Stourbridge College.
There is much to celebrate at the college. The state of the art Advanced Technology Centre in Brierley Hill, the Art and Design Centre, the Retail Academy run in partnership with Westfield as well as all the academic study. Our College has gone from the bottom quartile to the top quartile in five years and exudes ambition and enterprise.
Margot was told of the closure of nearby Kidderminster College's hairdressing course. This is a popular career choice and it was surprising that it had closed. The reasons were concerning. Students, mostly girls, had enrolled on the course but had dropped out to go back on benefits. The decline in numbers had made the course untenable.
Whilst there are training, educational and commercial opportunities in ready supply 16-19 year olds should not be on benefits. Benefits should be available to alleviate short term gaps in employment and long term disability. They should not be available to young people as an alternative to getting on and earning a living.
Margot said "the availability of easy benefits in the form of jobseekers allowance to fit and healthy young people are doing them a disservice, often at that age it is hard to know what to do and nothing seems right, but the necessity of getting on and doing something productive is an essential part of development and we are doing no one any favours by denying this." The Conservative Party are proposing to attach more stringent conditions to the availability of the Jobseekers Allowance.
