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The Jobseekers (Back to Work Schemes) Act 2013 [1] is an emergency Act of Parliament of the United Kingdom introduced to the House of Commons in March 2013. [2] It retrospectively changed the law to make past actions of the government which the courts had found unlawful to be lawful. As of July 2014, the Act has been found to contravene Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights.
Related to programmes through the United Kingdom's Coalition Government's "Work Programme", [3] created by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), the Jobseeker's (Back to Work Schemes) Bill addressed situations where Jobseeker's Allowance claimants may be asked to work without pay in some circumstances. [4]
The Bill was drafted as a direct result of a court case against the Government lodged by Caitlin Reilly and Jamieson Wilson. [5] They won their case that the "Work Programme" schemes had not been enacted and implemented entirely lawfully, implying that the state should repay benefits unlawfully withheld from claimants. [6] The DWP reacted to confirm that existing regulations would be tightened up to retain the scheme, saying that only those "serious in finding work" would continue to claim benefits. [7]
Secretary of State Iain Duncan Smith confirmed in media interviews that the Jobseeker's (Back to Work Schemes) Bill was drafted in reaction to the court case, as he wanted to deal with people he said thought they "were too good" for such schemes. [8] The Bill was introduced before the appeal process in Reilly and Jamieson's case was complete. The Bill was "introduced to avoid the need to repay claimants who have been sanctioned for failure to comply with requirements under the ESE Regulations". [9] "ESE Regulations" are those contained in the Jobseeker's Allowance (Employment, Skills and Enterprise Scheme) Regulations 2011. [10]
The process for drafting and debating the Bill received criticism, as it would effectively reverse the court of appeal's decision and penalise people who were not acting unlawfully at the time. [11] Civil rights organisations linked such moves with oppressive regimes. [12]
The Bill was 'fast-tracked' through parliament, with the consequence that it was not possible for the Joint Committee on Human Rights to scrutinise it. The House of Lords Constitutional Committee, moreover, 'concluded that the government had not advanced a good rationale for the Bill to be fast-tracked'. [13]
Minister for Disabled People Esther McVey said the Bill was about 'giving jobseekers the best possible way to find employment'. The "second reading" stage was passed by 277 votes to 57. [14] Forty members of the opposition Labour Party opposed the Bill. [15] The Labour Party largely abstained from voting on the Bill, which was seen as effectively supporting the measure. [16]
The second reading of the Bill in the House of Lords attracted a number of scathing comments from legislators for its retrospective changing of the law, allowing benefits claimants to be penalised for actions which had proved legal at the time when they were taken. [17]
The Bill passed its third reading in the Commons by 263 votes to 52 on 19 March 2013. [18]
The law firm acting for Reilly and Wilson, Public Interest Lawyers, lodged submissions to the supreme court, arguing that 'the actions of the secretary of state … represent a clear violation of article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights and the rule of law, as an interference in the judicial process by the legislature'. [19] On Friday 4 July 2014, Mrs Justice Lang, sitting at the High Court in London, ruled that the retrospective nature of the legislation interfered with Reilly's right to a fair trial under Article Six of the Convention on Human Rights. [20] The government announced that it would appeal this ruling, and did not in the meantime make any payouts. On 29 April 2016, the appeal came before the Court of Appeal, which upheld the previous court's decision; Lord Justice Underhill, summarising the court's findings, emphasised that although the Act was incompatible with the European Convention on Human Rights, 'it is up to the Government, subject to any further appeal, to decide what action to take in response'. [21]
The incompatibility of the Act with the European Convention on Human Rights was eventually resolved when Parliament approved The Jobseekers (Back to Work Schemes) Act 2013 (Remedial) Order 2020, a Remedial Order under the Human Rights Act 1998. The Order inserted two new sections into the Act to restore the position of claimants who had pending appeals on 26 March 2013, and to allow the Secretary of State to administratively remake their decision where these claimants' appeals had been finally rejected since then. [22]
The Solidarity Federation, also known by the abbreviation SolFed, is a federation of class struggle anarchists active in Britain. The organisation advocates a strategy of anarcho-syndicalism as a method of abolishing capitalism and the state, and describes itself as a "revolutionary union". In 1994 it adopted its current name, having previously been the Direct Action Movement since 1979, and before that the Syndicalist Workers' Federation since 1950.
United Kingdom labour law regulates the relations between workers, employers and trade unions. People at work in the UK have a minimum set of employment rights, from Acts of Parliament, Regulations, common law and equity. This includes the right to a minimum wage of £10.42 for over-23-year-olds from April 2023 under the National Minimum Wage Act 1998. The Working Time Regulations 1998 give the right to 28 days paid holidays, breaks from work, and attempt to limit long working hours. The Employment Rights Act 1996 gives the right to leave for child care, and the right to request flexible working patterns. The Pensions Act 2008 gives the right to be automatically enrolled in a basic occupational pension, whose funds must be protected according to the Pensions Act 1995. Workers must be able to vote for trustees of their occupational pensions under the Pensions Act 2004. In some enterprises, such as universities or NHS foundation trusts, staff can vote for the directors of the organisation. In enterprises with over 50 staff, workers must be negotiated with, with a view to agreement on any contract or workplace organisation changes, major economic developments or difficulties. The UK Corporate Governance Code recommends worker involvement in voting for a listed company's board of directors but does not yet follow international standards in protecting the right to vote in law. Collective bargaining, between democratically organised trade unions and the enterprise's management, has been seen as a "single channel" for individual workers to counteract the employer's abuse of power when it dismisses staff or fix the terms of work. Collective agreements are ultimately backed up by a trade union's right to strike: a fundamental requirement of democratic society in international law. Under the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992 strike action is protected when it is "in contemplation or furtherance of a trade dispute".
The New Deal was a workfare programme introduced in the United Kingdom by the first New Labour government in 1998, initially funded by a one-off £5 billion windfall tax on privatised utility companies. The stated purpose was to reduce unemployment by providing training, subsidised employment and voluntary work to the unemployed. Spending on the New Deal was £1.3 billion in 2001.
The Human Rights Act 1998 is an Act of Parliament of the United Kingdom which received royal assent on 9 November 1998, and came into force on 2 October 2000. Its aim was to incorporate into UK law the rights contained in the European Convention on Human Rights. The Act makes a remedy for breach of a Convention right available in UK courts, without the need to go to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in Strasbourg.
Jobseeker's Allowance (JSA) is an unemployment benefit paid by the Government of the United Kingdom to people who are unemployed and actively seeking work. It is part of the social security benefits system and is intended to cover living expenses while the claimant is out of work.
Jobcentre Plus is a brand used by the Department for Work and Pensions in the United Kingdom.
Human rights in the United Kingdom concern the fundamental rights in law of every person in the United Kingdom. An integral part of the UK constitution, human rights derive from common law, from statutes such as Magna Carta, the Bill of Rights 1689 and the Human Rights Act 1998, from membership of the Council of Europe, and from international law.
The United Kingdom constitutional law concerns the governance of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. With the oldest continuous political system on Earth, the British constitution is not contained in a single code but principles have emerged over centuries from common law statute, case law, political conventions and social consensus. In 1215, Magna Carta required the King to call "common counsel" or Parliament, hold courts in a fixed place, guarantee fair trials, guarantee free movement of people, free the church from the state, and it enshrined the rights of "common" people to use the land. After the English Civil War and the Glorious Revolution 1688, Parliament won supremacy over the monarch, the church and the courts, and the Bill of Rights 1689 recorded that the "election of members of Parliament ought to be free". The Act of Union 1707 unified England, Wales and Scotland, while Ireland was joined in 1800, but the Republic of Ireland formally separated between 1916 and 1921 through bitter armed conflict. By the Representation of the People Act 1928, almost every adult man and woman was finally entitled to vote for Parliament. The UK was a founding member of the International Labour Organization (ILO), the United Nations, the Commonwealth, the Council of Europe, and the World Trade Organization (WTO).
Civil liberties in the United Kingdom are part of UK constitutional law and have a long and formative history. This is usually considered to have begun with Magna Carta of 1215, a landmark document in British constitutional history. Development of civil liberties advanced in common law and statute law in the 17th and 18th centuries, notably with the Bill of Rights 1689. During the 19th century, working-class people struggled to win the right to vote and join trade unions. Parliament responded with new legislation beginning with the Reform Act 1832. Attitudes towards suffrage and liberties progressed further in the aftermath of the first and second world wars. Since then, the United Kingdom's relationship to civil liberties has been mediated through its membership of the European Convention on Human Rights. The United Kingdom, through Sir David Maxwell-Fyfe, led the drafting of the Convention, which expresses a traditional civil libertarian theory. It became directly applicable in UK law with the enactment of the Human Rights Act 1998.
R (Carson) v Secretary of State for Work and Pensions and R v Secretary of State for Work and Pensions were a series of civil action court cases seeking judicial review of the British government's policies under the Human Rights Act 1998. They related to the right to property under Article 1 of the First Protocol and prohibition of discrimination under Article 14 of the convention. In Reynolds's case, there was also Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), the right to respect for "private and family life" to be considered, as well as Article 3 of the ECHR, the prohibition of torture, and "inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment".
The constitution of the United Kingdom or British constitution comprises the written and unwritten arrangements that establish the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland as a political body. Unlike in most countries, no attempt has been made to codify such arrangements into a single document, thus it is known as an uncodified constitution. This enables the constitution to be easily changed as no provisions are formally entrenched.
Youth unemployment in the United Kingdom is the level of unemployment among young people, typically defined as those aged 18–25. A related concept is graduate unemployment which is the level of unemployment among university graduates. Statistics for June 2010 show that there are 926,000 young people under the age of 25 who are unemployed which equates to an unemployment rate of 19.6% among young people. This is the highest youth unemployment rate in 17 years. In November 2011 youth unemployment hit 1.02 million, but had fallen to 767,000 by August 2014. The high levels of youth unemployment in the United Kingdom have led some politicians and media commentators to talk of a "lost generation".
R v Secretary of State for Work and Pensions [2013] UKSC 68 is a United Kingdom constitutional law and labour law case that found the conduct of the Department for Work and Pensions "workfare" policy was unlawful. Caitlin Reilly, an unemployed geology graduate, and Jamieson Wilson, an unemployed driver, challenged the Jobcentre policy of making the unemployed work for private companies to get unemployment income. The outcome of the case affects over 3,000 claimants and entails around £130m unpaid benefits.
Mandatory Work Activity (MWA) was a workfare programme in the United Kingdom whereby individuals had to work for their benefits or risk being "sanctioned" and losing them. MWA started in May 2011, but in November 2015 the DWP confirmed it was "not renewing" it. An academic analysis by the Department of Work and Pensions cast doubt on the effectiveness of MWA, and despite finding "little evidence" that workfare improved claimants gaining paid employment, the DWP ignored the findings of the study, and in June 2012, the scheme received a £5m expansion. A similar but little-known scheme "Jobseeker Mandatory Activity" (JMA) was piloted by New Labour in 2006, but did not last beyond 2008. JMA targeted those claimants 25 and over, who had been unemployed for 6 months or more and made claimants liable to "sanction" for non-compliance.
Workfare in the United Kingdom is a system of welfare regulations put into effect by UK governments at various times. Individuals subject to workfare must undertake work in return for their welfare benefit payments or risk losing them. Workfare policies are politically controversial. Supporters claim that such policies help people move off welfare and into employment whereas critics argue that they are analogous to slavery or indentured servitude and counterproductive in decreasing unemployment.
The Work Programme (WP) was a UK government welfare-to-work programme introduced in Great Britain in June 2011. It was the flagship welfare-to-work scheme of the 2010–2015 UK coalition government. Under the Work Programme the task of getting the long-term unemployed into work was outsourced to a range of public sector, private sector and third sector organisations. The scheme replaced a range of schemes which existed under previous New Labour governments including Employment Zones, New Deal, Flexible New Deal and the now abolished Future Jobs Fund scheme which aimed to tackle youth unemployment. Despite being the flagship welfare-to-work scheme of the Conservative-led coalition government, and then the incumbent Conservative government from May 2015, the DWP announced, in November 2015, that it was replacing the Work Programme and Work Choice with a new Work and Health Programme for the longer-term unemployed and those with health conditions. The DWP also announced that it would not be renewing Mandatory Work Activity and Help to Work which included Community Work Placements.
The Welfare Reform Act 2012 is an Act of Parliament in the United Kingdom which makes changes to the rules concerning a number of benefits offered within the British social security system. It was enacted by the Parliament of the United Kingdom on 8 March 2012.
The Day One Support for Young People Trailblazer was a compulsory workfare scheme for young unemployed 18- to 24-year-olds, that was trialled in North and South London Jobcentre Plus districts, between 26 November 2012 and 26 July 2013. The workfare scheme whereby unemployed people must work in return for state unemployment benefits was introduced during a time of particularly high youth unemployed in the United Kingdom. As a mandatory scheme, claimants were sanctioned if they failed to meet the requirements of the scheme. The scheme differed from other workfare schemes which are generally aimed at the long term unemployed as claimants were forced onto the scheme immediately or soon after making a claim for Jobseeker's Allowance if they "had not previously completed six months of paid employment since leaving full time education". Claimants were mandated to complete 30 hours of work for 13 weeks and also had to continue to "sign on" during that period.
The benefit cap is a UK welfare policy that limits the amount in state benefits that an individual household can claim per year. It was introduced by the Cameron–Clegg coalition government in 2013 as part of the coalition government's wide-reaching welfare reform agenda which included the introduction of Universal Credit and reforms of housing benefit and disability benefits. The government cited wide public support for the measure, despite it being highly controversial. The benefit cap primarily affects families with children, high rents, or both.
R (Carson) v Secretary of State for Work and Pensions [2005] UKHL 37 was heard by the Lords of Appeal in the House of Lords on 26 May 2005 before Lord Nicholls, Lord Hoffmann, Lord Rodger, Lord Walker, and Lord Carswell.
