Poundland row work for jobless faces new challenge

Lawyers have announced they are to bring judicial review proceedings over new legislation they accuse Department for Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith of “shamefully” rushing through Parliament.

Mr Duncan Smith yesterday lost his bid to overturn an earlier ruling that 2011 regulations underpinning schemes that saw jobseekers stripped of benefits if they refused unpaid work at firms including Poundland were invalid.

The schemes were condemned by critics as “slave labour” but were welcomed by others as an effective way of getting people into employment.

Five Supreme Court justices upheld a Court of Appeal decision which went against the Government in February, agreeing that the regulations did not give jobseekers enough information about the scheme and its sanctions for refusing placements.

But they ruled the regulations did not amount to forced labour.

Phil Shiner, head of Public Interest Lawyers, said yesterday’s Supreme Court ruling was “of huge constitutional and practical significance”. His firm would now focus on challenging new legislation the Government fast-tracked through Parliament in March, which validates the 2011 regulations retrospectively, he added.

Mr Duncan Smith said he was pleased the Supreme Court had upheld the Government’s right to require those claiming jobseeker’s allowance to take part in back to work programmes.

He said: “We have always said it was ridiculous to say our schemes amounted to forced labour, and yet again we have won this argument. This judgment confirms it is right that we expect people to take getting into work seriously if they want to claim benefits.”

The legal battle centred on claims by graduate Cait Reilly, 24, from Birmingham, who challenged having to give up volunteering at a museum to work for free at a Poundland store, and unemployed HGV driver Jamieson Wilson, 40, from Nottingham, who objected to doing unpaid work cleaning furniture and was stripped of his benefits.

Ms Reilly said she hoped the judgment would improve the system. “It must be time for the Government to rethink its strategy and do something constructive to help lift people out of unemployment and poverty,” she said.

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