Pick up litter for your dole: Long-term jobless will also clean up graffiti or cook for the elderly in Tory 'work for benefits' plan



George Osborne will announce the £300m 'work for the dole' scheme today

Will be funded from spending cuts to be detailed in the autumn statement

Could be introduced within 6 months, affecting 200,000 on welfare



Claimants would have to do 30 hours a week in a work placement



Benefits will be stripped from the long-term jobless unless they work full time picking up litter, removing graffiti or preparing meals for the elderly.



George Osborne will today announce details of the US-style ‘work for the dole’ programme, starting within six months and affecting 200,000 welfare claimants.



Revealed by the Mail last week, the £300million scheme ends the concept of simply ‘signing on’, the Chancellor will tell the Tory party conference.

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Crackdown: Chancellor George Osborne insisted this 'no option of doing nothing for your benefits'

New policy: Around 200,000 unemployed people claiming jobseeker's allowance in the UK will be affected by a new Tory 'work for your dole' scheme

And he will accuse Labour of allowing people to linger on benefits for years – with no questions asked – while letting uncontrolled numbers of migrants fill low-paid jobs.

Speaking on ITV's Daybreak ahead of his speech, Mr Osborne said: 'From now on, people are going to have to do something in return for those benefits.



'These are people who have been unemployed for three years, and we’re saying in return for that you’ve either got to do some work in your community like cleaning the graffiti up or cooking meals for the elderly or you’ve got to be signing on every day at the Jobcentre, or you need to be getting real help with some of, perhaps, your underlying problems like a drug problem or illiteracy.

'So we’re saying there’s no option of doing nothing for your benefits. No something for nothing anymore.



'People are going to have to do things to get their dole and that is going to help them into work – that is the crucial point. This is all activity that is actually going to help them get ready for the world of work.'

Mr Osborne’s announcement is the centrepiece of the second day of the Manchester conference. In other key developments:



A ‘deport first, appeal later’ regime for foreign criminals and illegal immigrants will be announced by Theresa May;

David Cameron gave the strongest hint yet that a majority Tory government would withdraw from the European Court of Human Rights;

The ‘Help to Buy’ mortgage scheme is to be brought forward to next week;

Labour and the Lib Dems were accused of ‘sneering’ at marriage for condemning a tax break for married couples;

Tory HQ vowed to stop a handful of MPs trying to stand as joint Conservative-Ukip candidates.



The ‘Help to Work’ scheme – quickly dubbed ‘Made to Work’ – is likely to face furious opposition from left-wing activists and charities.



Workfare: The new benefits rule is the centrepiece of Mr Osborne's speech at the Tory party conference in Manchester

But Mr Osborne will tell Tory delegates: ‘For the first time, all long-term unemployed people who are capable of work will be required to do something in return for their benefits to help them find work.



‘They will do useful work to put something back into their community – making meals for the elderly, clearing up litter, working for a local charity. Others will be made to attend the job centre every working day.

‘And for those with underlying problems, like drug addiction and illiteracy, there will be an intensive regime of help. No one will be ignored or left without help. But no one will get something for nothing.’



The Liberal Democrats have agreed that the scheme, which is larger than expected, should begin next April – confirming welfare as a major election issue.



Around 200,000 jobseeker’s allowance claimants will be affected each year.



Mr Osborne will also use his speech to the conference to warn that ‘many risks remain’ to the economic recovery.



He will argue that what matters most for living standards are ‘jobs, and low mortgage rates, and lower taxes’ – an implied rebuke to Labour leader Ed Miliband’s proposal to use 1970s-style laws to fix energy prices.



But the Chancellor will warn that family finances will ‘not be transformed overnight’ because Britain was made ‘much poorer’ by the economic crash of 2007 and 2008.

At the conference: The announcement comes after David Cameron revealed the Help to Buy mortgage scheme is being brought forward to next week

And he will argue that it is crucial for Britain’s future economic health that the long-term unemployed no longer have ‘a life on the dole’.



The £300million Help to Work scheme, the Chancellor will say, will be funded from spending cuts and savings elsewhere, to be detailed in the autumn statement.

SLIMLINE GOVE: I'M NO LEADER A slimline Michael Gove yesterday denied he is shaping up for a leadership battle. The Education Secretary, who has been to a ‘fat farm’ in Austria, insisted he was an ‘inconceivable choice’ to head the Tories and would in no circumstances put himself forward.

‘I don’t want to do it, I wouldn’t do it,’ he said. ‘It wouldn’t matter how many people asked me to do it – I don’t think there would be very many.’ In the unlikely event that he is suddenly ‘possessed of the idea’, he said: ‘Those who know me best of all would try to stop me. Absolutely no.’

Mr Gove, a close ally of David Cameron and often tipped as a future leader, unveiled his new look at the party conference.

His spell at the £2,500-a-week health spa saw him lose a reported two stone from his 15-stone starting point.

At the clinic on the shores of Lake Worthersee, popular with Liz Hurley and the Duchess of York, he was restricted to 600 calories a day and denied caffeine and alcohol.

Treatments include colonic irrigation and blood-letting.

A fellow visitor said he was the only man there.

Claimants put on community work placements will have to do 30 hours a week for six months, plus ten hours of job search activity a week, and show they are doing ‘everything they can’ to find paid work.

Placements will have to be of wider benefit to the community as well as the individual claimant.



Those who break the rules will lose four weeks of benefits for their first breach of the rules, and a quarter of a year’s worth for any second offence.



‘By the time Labour left office, five million people were on out-of-work benefits.



'What a waste of life and talent,’ Mr Osborne will say.

‘A generation of people recycled through the job centres – collecting their dole cheques year in year out, and no one seemed to notice.



'For an open-door immigration policy meant those running the economy didn’t care: there was always a ready supply of low-skilled labour from abroad. Well, never again.’



The Chancellor will argue that, under Labour’s welfare system, people were better off on benefits than in work and nothing was asked for in return for handouts.



Rachel Reeves, Labour’s Treasury spokesman, said: ‘It’s taken three wasted years of rising long-term unemployment and a failed Work Programme to come up with this new scheme.



‘But this policy is not as ambitious as Labour’s compulsory jobs guarantee, which would ensure there is a paid job for every young person out of work for over 12 months and every adult unemployed for more than two years.



‘With Labour’s plans we would work with employers to ensure there are jobs for young people and the long-term unemployed – which they would have to take up or lose benefits.



'Under the Tory scheme people would still be allowed to languish on the dole for years on end without having a proper job.’