Blair: New deal for "workless classes"

Blair: Budget to give hope and new chances

Help for single parents

Blair's New Deal for "Workless Classes"

In a fundamental reshaping of the welfare system he said he was proposing a "something for something" deal providing jobs or training for 250,000 out-of-work youngsters. He made clear that any young people who did not take up a place on one of the four schemes on offer would face the loss of benefits. "There will be and should be no fifth option of an inactive life on benefit," he said.

The Prime Minister deliberately chose a rundown south London housing estate to deliver his "message of hope" to the "forgotten people" - including 800,000 lone parents. It was his first major speech outside Parliament since taking office and Mr Blair stressed that it would take time to achieve his vision of a "one nation" society.

During the speech as it was confirmed that the first Budget of the new Government would be on July 2. The centrepiece of Chancellor Gordon Brown's package will be a £3 billion welfare-to-work programme for the young unemployed financed by a one-off windfall tax on the privatised utilities.

His words aimed mainly at single parents and young people, the Prime Minister said eveyone had a duty to perform in society and governments should do everything possible to allow them to do so.

Mr Blair also promised new measures to get unemployed single mothers back into work which included using National Lottery funds to pay for after school homework classes for the children of working parents.

"Governments can lock people into dependence rather than give them the means to be independent," he said. "They can give out money not because it is the right thing to do but because it is the easy thing to do," he said.

"It is economically and morally unsustainable - economically because it loads up costs on to the taxpayer, and morally because we should always judge the state of any country by the condition of the weak as well as the strong," he said.

Blair's speech: Single Mothers Won't Be Forced To Take Work

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