"Somebody's got to keep me"

I heard something that shocked me this morning.

“I'm not at all worried (about cuts in welfare support), somebody's got to keep me.”

That phrase was said by Trevor Price who has effectively been off work since 1984.

That's over a quarter of a century.

As legitimate as his health complaints maybe, he is not alone, and in Merthyr Tydfil, he is even less alone.

The south Wales town is known not just around Wales, but the whole UK, as a benefit blackspot.

It's a place where a few years ago the local population were so unmotivated to seek out employment that a free bus taking job seekers down the A470 to Cardiff was cut due to a lack of demand.

That service had been launched under a great fanfare of publicity, but just weeks later the local press was filled with headlines and photos of the driver frequently making the trip on his own.

Expectation

People like Trevor have been brought into a state of mind that they no longer have to provide for themselves and their families.

Without doing anything at all, they expect to receive a weekly handout from the state.

In most cases this doesn't provide a luxurious lifestyle, but it is one that is easy and has become routine.

However, it is the flatness of Trevor's reply that is most evocative.

No emotion.

No feeling of disappointment at not being able to personally provide for his family.

No wounded pride.

Just a sense of “this is my due.”

Nasty Shocks

Unfortunately, the next year will probably contain some nasty shocks for Trevor and 2.5m other Incapacity Benefit claimants.

It does not matter which party wins the next election.

That may sound like a foreboding Conservative election win prediction, but a reform process has already been put in place that will see all those current IB claimants being reassessed under the stricter and tougher Employment and Support Allowance.

This is now based upon what work tasks a person can perform, and many will be compelled to take up whatever employment they are offered or risk losing those benefits.

It seems clear from the early results that when making the decisions, the ESA will be administered too harshly rather than too softly.

Trevor may not be the guilty party here, but there is universal political agreement that too many people have been placed onto this benefit system scrapheap who could otherwise have been working and leading productive lives in alternative careers of their own choice.

Now the problem has grown so big, they will instead be mandated to do so.

The Department for Work and Pensions, which administers the benefits system, is the biggest spending Government department.

At £135.7bn in 2009 it tops the NHS, Defence, Transport, everything.

It's clear that with the country facing a mammoth economic blackhole, that situation cannot go on, and sooner rather than later, it will not.

You can listen to the entire interview from the BBC Radio 4 Today programme. (Move to 2.50)