Grayling-Brown has used migrant Labour as the easy option

Chris Grayling's speech has been well previewed in this morning's papers as the Conservatives are considering setting up bootcamps for the unemployed.

His office has released the text of his speech (via Politics Home)in which he says that Gordon Brown has used migrant Labour as the cheap and easy option to fill employment requirements

Here are some excerps

in the same ten years(of employment growth) there have remained serious pockets of unemployment and welfare dependency in those same areas where there have been thousands of new jobs created

These people he says are

trapped in a cycle of worklessness. They are often personable and likeable. But they are also a mile away from the job market - lacking experience, self-confidence, the basic know-how about how to get and hold down a job.

and he thinks that

Brown has used the influx of migrant workers as a way of ducking the issue of welfare reform, and as a result has left millions of people stranded in poverty who could and should have been helped back to work over the last decade.

He sees

breaking that cycle of worklessness as one of the crucial challenges for the next Conservative Government.

So the Tories plan to

change the way our benefits system works for those without work. In future there will be strict conditions on the future receipt of benefits. What I want to see is a situation where everyone who is struggling to find a job, but has the potential to get back into work is taking part in structured and usually near-full-time activity. I want to see them to get up and get out of their homes every day either to take part in personal development activities, work experience or community work.

Much as I hate saying it,I agree to an extent with Grayling's sentiment.

However the issue has been around for many years.Many polititians have promised reform but none have delivered.He is wrong about Labour's use of migrant Labour,they have simply filled a gap that the British worker doesn't want to fill.Yes part of the soultion is to put more pressure where needed on the long term unemployed.

However it is important to differentiate between those that genuinely want to work and those that have no intention of and hide behind various schemes and systems.