New law to halt benefit for work-shy youngsters
By Jon Hibbs, Political Correspondent
 

TOUGH laws to deny benefit for six months to work-shy youngsters who refuse the chance of training or jobs under the Government's welfare-to-work programme were introduced into the Commons yesterday.

 If approved, the regulations will enforce stiffer penalties from April against a hard core of fewer than 1,000 young people who ministers believe are playing the system. Currently, any 18- to 25-year-old who turns down a place on the New Deal has benefit stopped for two weeks on first refusal, rising to four weeks for a subsequent failure.

 The revised rules will still give youngsters two chances to conform but a third refusal will result in benefits worth more than £40 a week being stopped for six months.

 Tessa Jowell, the employment minister, said: "This is aimed at the hard cases." Unions and the Unemployment Unit said there was something wrong with the programme if such a tiny minority had to be arm-twisted in this way.