100 Years on the Broo BBC Scotland Investigates

The benefit system has created a benefit culture.

It doesn't just allow people to act irresponsibly, but often actively encourages them to do so.

It's a really boring life.

Just sitting about, spending the money you get, then you have to wait like a week without money.

The welfare that works is welfare that helps people to help themselves.

It's your quality of life. Things that you've worked hard to deserve.

They were all about to be taken away from you.

What our people seem to have lost is belief in the balance between production and welfare.

And that's the balance this government's got to find.

People who worked on the Broo and people who worked in job centres at the time

treated unemployment as if, "You can do better."

I remember in a class of 60,

the teacher saying, "Hands up all those their fathers are unemployed." Every hand in the class went up.

Love it or loathe it, life on the Broo has been part of our culture for 100 years.

Just about everyone in Scotland has either lived it or knows someone who has.

But how did we get here and what happened before life on the Broo?

Life at the beginning of the 20th century was brutish and short.

A boy born in 1900 could expect to live until he was just 45 - a girl till she was 49.

The average worker earned £1.40 for a 60-hour week.

But if life was tough for those with a job, for those without, it was dreadful.

You would have had to become a pauper.

You would have to have lost your civil rights,

to have gone into the workhouse.

And if you or any of your family had to go to the workhouse, for example, because of sickness,

because of mental illness, because of disability, then the family would be pauperised.

It would mean that they would lose everything and lose all rights.

Workhouses had been around since the 17th century.

They prevented total destitution, but only just.

In one room, a group of people would sew mailbags,

they would be taken out into another room where people

would unpick them and the whole process would start over again.

So it was exceptionally demeaning, it was exceptionally cruel, people dreaded going into the poorhouse.

By the beginning of the 20th century, there was a growing

acceptance that unemployment was rarely the fault of the unemployed.

Illness and closures were far more common causes.

At the same time, the working class vote was becoming increasingly important.

So, in 1911, the Liberal Chancellor Lloyd George introduced the National Insurance Act.

Life on the Broo was born.

Lloyd George's idea was to address a problem of poverty.

He wanted to deal with mass poverty that was too proud

to wear the badge of pauperism.

So he introduced insurance which would be a scheme that workers would pay into,

that the State would pay into and that also employers would pay into.

Initially it was only available to certain jobs.

Those that by their nature were sporadic, like shipbuilding.

Even so, the Liberals had introduced a safety net for the working classes

and stolen the lead on their Labour Party rivals.

It came into being, but Keir Hardie

and the Labour movement were immediately critical of it

for these reasons. One is that, in fact,

despite all the publicity, it only covered a minority of workers.

It only covered about two million workers.

The other criticism was that if they got unemployment pay, it was only for about 15 weeks.

So, if you're unemployed after that, you're back in the Poor Law

and their other criticism was that it was a very low pay level, seven shillings a week.

So it didn't take people out of poverty.

The Liberals were so pleased with Lloyd George's reforms,

they commissioned a film showing people freed from the tyranny of the workhouse.

In reality, it remained as the place of last resort until the 1940s.

But any concerns about life on the Broo would soon be overshadowed.

There had never been a war like it. Killing on an industrial scale.

Millions dead.

No family was left untouched.

On the home front, women entered the workplace en masse,

frequently undertaking jobs previously reserved for men.

For those lucky enough to return from the war, there was little else to cheer.

The economy was struggling.

With Russia having fallen to the Bolsheviks, governments feared idle and hungry workers.

Benefits were extended to cover most jobs.

Life on the Broo was a useful tool.

It was a feeling of utter despair.

That's the only way I can describe it.

They had the local corner crowds,

where 20 and 30 strong men, unemployed,

a great many of them ex-servicemen from the First World War, which was only a few years back.

I think if there hadn't been

unemployment benefit,

or Poor Law benefit, or some kind of provision made,

there'd have been a massive reaction.

-I mean, I can remember hunger marches being organised.

-Of course.

-Unemployed...

-Went to London.

-..were marching to London.

And some of them were carrying banners, carrying placards saying, "We Want Bread".

-"We Want Work."

-In fact, I remember seeing a placard, and I cringe when I remember it,

"We Want Unemployed Benefit Increased."

You know, you look back and you say, "Christ, these people

"are just looking for a livelihood, you know."

The first march for jobs set off to London from Glasgow in 1922

and protesters carried on marching from all over Britain for a decade.

For many though, life on the Broo was the only option.

By 1932, a staggering one in every five of the working population was claiming unemployment benefit.

A record that has remained unbroken to this day.

Before the First World War, unemployment tended to be quite

short term, it tended to, you know, if you were working on a ship, once the ship was finished,

you would have to wait until the next order for a ship came in.

But, in the 1920s and '30s, what you get is long-term mass unemployment.

There is absolutely no prospect whatsoever of finding a job.

In 1934, the Unemployment Assistance Act acknowledged the changing times.

Last summer, parliament passed the Unemployment Act.

Part 2, which is to come into operation in two stages,

in January and March next, makes the state, and not the local authorities,

responsible for the care of nearly all the able-bodied unemployed who are in need.

This, in itself, is a great change for the better.

Now, the long-term unemployed, and those who'd never even had a job,

would be entitled to a life on the Broo.

But it came at a price.

My father worked at the docks and there was no

ships coming in but there was a lot of unemployment everywhere.

So my mother had to go to a place in Stanley Street

to make an application for money for the rent and coal money.

And, at the time, being at that age, I didn't realise what my mother was going through.

You sat for hours and hours and they asked all sorts of questions.

If there was anything in the house that could be pawned for to bring in some money.

How humiliating it must have been

for to go - that was you begging more or less - through no fault of your own.

The means test applies to a household.

So, if anybody is bringing in income to the household, that's part of the household's means.

If the household is seen as having too much by way of capital, they get excluded.

The household means test is really hated.

This is what Orwell is describing in The Road To Wigan Pier.

These watchdogs were out prowling about and, for some reason or another,

there was always a grapevine in the area.

"The means test people are prowling about to verify that

"you're not staying with the family, your own family."

So your benefit would be reduced.

I'd be in the house and somebody would come and say,

"The means test men are in the street."

And I'd simply dive out right away, over a back court, through a close,

up, chap Mrs Gormley's door, and Mrs Gormley'd say, "Come in, son.

"Right, is that the means test man?" "Yeah." "Just sit down there."

And within minutes, these guys had a nose, you know.

Within minutes they'd come in. I'd be sitting at Mrs Gormley's table, you know, looking at a comic

or a book or something, you know, and Mrs Gormley would say, "Ah, he's all right, he's behaving himself,"

and stuff like that, you know, bigging it up.

The whole thing was ludicrous.

But it was so very important at the time.

Increasingly, it was becoming clear that industry alone could never create the jobs needed

and governments would have to offer their workers more than just a life on the Broo.

Governments came to look at their responsibilities in a different way.

The idea that governments could actually control what was happening in the economy, that they didn't

simply have to accept the outcomes of whatever happened in the market.

And also Keynes made the critically important argument

that it was much, much better to pay people for doing something than paying them for doing nothing.

Work had stopped on the Queen Mary in 1931.

The liner stood rusting on the Clyde for over two years - a symbol of Britain's economic woes.

Now the Government put up money to finish the job.

'Cheered all the way by a quarter of a million people.

'Chains take up the strain.'

In rural Scotland, the Hydro Scheme promised communities both jobs and electricity.

And, in 1937, work began on Scotland's first industrial estate.

Scotland has been going through a severe industrial depression.

But now, at last, the tide seems to have turned.

At the Hillington industrial estate on Clydeside, new factories are springing up - factories that will

bring employment and happiness to many a dark, depressed home.

In 1938, as the decade drew to a close, Scotland hosted

the Empire Exhibition in Glasgow's Bellahouston Park.

A spectacular celebration of industrial endeavour.

It was a tremendous success, attracting more than 12 million visitors.

Then, just nine months after it was all over, life on the Broo became the very least of people's concerns.

During the Second World War,

the areas in the UK that are hit hardest in the Great Depression,

economically are the most vital for the success of Britain during the war.

It's the heavy, traditional, industrial areas that need to

produce the munitions - the steel, the ships, the coal...

They're absolutely vital and, you know, politicians recognise that they can't simply

go to these people and say, "Work hard for the duration of the war but you might end up unemployed."

'As the result of much intensive study into social security, Sir William Beveridge

'is the recognised authority on present-day and post-war problems.

'Following upon the publication of his report, Sir William summarises the points of his plan."

The report proposes, first,

an all-in scheme of social insurance,

providing for all citizens and their families all the cash benefits

needed for security.

The report that he produced was one that Churchill

didn't want and wasn't interested in and proposed not to publish.

Beveridge leaked it and it became a bestseller.

It became a major propaganda tool.

It was parachuted - literally - into occupied territory abroad

and it had a huge effect, not only in Britain, but on other countries in other places.

For the Broo, life really did begin at 40. Well, nearly.

37 years after it was introduced, a war-weary nation could now look

forward to social security from cradle to grave.

I want to ask you all to help

in making this country of ours more prosperous.

So, please, everyone try - by 5th July - to have read the booklet right through.

Put it safely away.

You may need it one day.

Then you can read what to do. Right?

You lucky people!

Beveridge's scheme was not without flaws.

It soon became apparent there needed to be something for people who were unable to contribute.

So National Assistance was introduced.

And, in the post-war years, as the economy began to boom,

other anomalies of a contribution-based system emerged.

It was clear that we actually had very little support for people with disabilities.

So, in 1971, as part of the concerns, we have the introduction of invalidity benefit,

which is an extension of the existing National Insurance Sickness Benefit

for long-term claimants, and invalidity benefit is the direct

ancestor or parent of incapacity benefit in the 1990s.

The benefits system was proliferating at a time when the old industries were faltering.

They were increasingly dependent on subsidy and crippled by industrial unrest.

The 1970s became a decade synonymous with strikes, three-day weeks and blackouts.

That was all set to change when the Conservatives swept to power in 1979.

What you have in the 1980s is, along comes Mrs Thatcher and says,

"Right, state intervention is effectively over,"

and pulls out the plug on these failing industries, which creates

mass unemployment yet again.

In fact, because of population growth, in sheer numbers,

levels were higher than they'd been in the 1930s.

By 1986, three million people were unemployed,

just over 10% of the working age population.

There was all these big industrial places closing down and my fear factor was worse

because, at that time, I had a child and I'm thinking,

"How do I support this child? How do I support my wife?

"How do I look after a house?" And it was a real massive fear factor.

There was no future, you were just desperate to get a job.

Margaret Thatcher's refusal to continue subsidising

old, unprofitable industries meant many went to the wall.

For those bemoaning the lack of work and opportunity, there was little sympathy.

I grew up in the '30s with an unemployed father.

He didn't riot. He got on his bike and looked for work

and he kept looking till he found it.

Whole communities that had depended on mines, car plants and steel works

suddenly found themselves devastated by closures.

The whole community was affected because shops started to close, public houses were closing

and shops were closing because there was nobody there for money to spend in the community.

The whole community was suffering.

People were starting to find jobs on the oilrigs, they were going on

jobs abroad, they were taking jobs anywhere and they had to leave their families behind and work away.

There's people on oilrigs working three or four weeks at a time away from home because they can't get

the job and the money they wanted within their own local community.

They had to go further afield and again that split families up because of the time they were away from home.

Job Centres struggled to cope.

New ideas such as job clubs and youth training schemes were launched

in an attempt to try and get people off benefits and back into work.

The YTS was particularly unpopular.

Seen as nothing more than cheap labour.

And for those who couldn't find work, life on the Broo was tough.

I found it really difficult to juggle everything.

So sometimes there'd be periods when

I wouldn't have electricity and things.

I remember in a particular flat, I'd found out from an electrician

friend of mine that you could wind the meter back.

And so I managed to buy a Scalextric power pack, that you cut the terminals off and if you...

And this is back in the days, obviously, when the meters

were completely different and all that kind of thing.

If you put it up behind the wires, it would reverse the polarity.

So you could spin the meter back.

But what happened was that I spun it back so far, I was into negative

kind of territory, so I had to do that thing of having two or three days with all the lights

and the oven on to try and get it to like a reasonable stage again.

You shouldn't do that. It's not big and it's not clever.

For more and more people, life on the Broo was becoming a much longer prospect.

Particular parts of the country,

often associated with manufacturing or mining,

had very large concentrations of unemployed people.

They went from unemployment benefit on to incapacity benefit, other forms of benefit.

And the families became welfare-dependent.

And, as a result of that, the next generation of the family to a certain

extent became welfare-dependent and, of course, this is what

really the last government and the current government

are extremely worried about - long-term benefit dependency.

Between 1979 and 1995, there were 33 changes to the definition of

unemployment - each time defining more and more people out.

What was happening was the Government was trying to

constrain the numbers of people who could claim unemployment benefit.

That meant that people who were unable to work had to claim a different kind of benefit.

If those people were sick or disabled, they could take a test to see if they were fit to work.

If they were not fit to work they could claim incapacity benefits.

In 1978, there were 800,000 men and women of working age on sickness benefit.

By 1992, that figure had risen to 2.2 million.

These people were living life on the Broo without registering as unemployed.

In Scotland, roughly, 280,000 people

on incapacity benefit or employment and support allowance.

That's at least 60% of the total workless population.

And, out of that group, 80% of them have been unemployed for two years or

more, and nearly two thirds have been unemployed for five years or more.

So that's where the very long-term unemployed people sit.

Statistics aren't available any more,

but I would estimate that maybe half of them haven't worked for ten years or more.

There is an oft-quoted figure, which is that once you've been on

incapacity benefit for two years or more, then you're more likely to die or retire than get a job.

So it's not an unemployment benefit, it's not a transition between one job

and another, it becomes almost like a benefit for life.

Labour came to power in 1997, pledging to overhaul the benefits system.

Job Centres became open plan, in the parlance of the day, more inclusive.

There was Job Seeker's Allowance, a new deal to help people back

into the workplace and benefits were paid directly into bank accounts.

Then, in 2008, the credit crunch.

Suddenly the middle-aged, middle class and middle management were losing their jobs.

I'd worked for the same company for quite some time.

It was almost 23 years I'd been there.

The last ten years as a middle manager.

It was the photographic industry so, during that time, it had gone through a lot of changes because

of digital, etc, but it was performing well.

And then along came the credit crunch.

We were one of the first victims of that.

We were told at work, on an early day in December, and later on that week we no longer had jobs.

My wife also worked for the company, she'd been there for a similar

amount of time to me, so it was a bit of a double whammy, frankly.

So, yeah, it was pretty difficult.

It wasn't just those losing their jobs who were struggling to cope.

When I started, I was obviously new.

I was a student at the time. It was a part-time job.

A lot of the other staff I worked with had been there for 30 years

and weren't used to working with this type of person.

Weren't used to looking for the type of jobs they were being asked to look for.

Weren't used to having people want to come in on a regular basis

to get help, rather than chasing people to come in.

Their expectations had totally changed of what their quality of life was going to be like.

In their heads, life was going to continue this way - they were

going to year-on-year get a promotion, get a pay rise.

Everything was looking rosy.

Initially it was a holiday. The first month was great - it was just time off.

The second month again, you know, you're kind of gearing up to find a job - you're looking around,

you're starting to send your CV out to people.

You're starting to find a routine.

After a three-month period, you start to worry.

And it gets worse and worse after that. In my case anyway.

As I say, after nine months I was

really delighted to find something.

It really does...

It's not just a financial price you're paying.

There's self-esteem issues as well. There's no getting around that.

As the credit crunch continued, ever-increasing numbers were claiming unemployment benefits.

Perhaps surprisingly, that was also helping to keep a shaky economy stable.

When the economy goes into recession, more people become unemployed.

The Government pays them unemployment benefit and the money from that

feeds back into the economy because people spend...

Unemployed people spend all their unemployment benefit because it's

not that generous, and that actually helps keep the economy ticking along.

So it's what we call an automatic stabiliser.

One of the biggest victims of this recession has been jobs for the young.

Unemployment among 16 to 24 year olds has been rising relentlessly.

And most won't qualify for Job Seeker's Allowance until they turn 18.

It's hard for my age because I'm only 18.

Not really many places they're actually taking people on.

Like you all have to have experience and all that nowadays

and it's not as if we're going to have experience for it.

You have to start somewhere.

I have to sign on every two weeks

and have a diary of the job searching I do.

Then it's like, the more you're on it,

like three months, then they start to nag you to get a job. It's worse.

It gets more irritating and annoying, I'd say.

You can't get any benefits until you're 18,

which I don't find very fair.

Why should somebody at 18 get them but somebody a bit younger can't?

And it does make it hard when you've got like no money and you're

getting older, so obviously you can't expect your ma and da to pay for everything.

I've been trying since, like, about Christmas time.

I've been handing out CVs and nobody's got back.

Every time I fill in an application form, it comes up "rejection".

Because like, even if it's just say for KFC, for instance,

I applied - automatic response e-mail saying, "You've been rejected."

How could the automatic response e-mail know?

How does that automatic system know? That's what I don't know, as well.

At 12 o'clock at night, I applied for it.

There was nobody looking at it.

Today, for those old enough to qualify, life on the Broo is complex.

There's a multitude of options and often people qualify for more than one.

In 2002, as leader of the opposition, Iain Duncan Smith

pledged to simplify the benefits system

and visited Easterhouse on a fact-finding mission.

-Rubbish!

-Iain Duncan Smith almost became my hero.

I took him to the Labour Party Conference in 2005.

He amazed me

because he stood up and he criticised the Labour Government

for putting benefits at too low a level.

He argued that it didn't take people out of poverty.

And he argued that benefits, including unemployment pay, should be

at the level where people could fully interact with their community.

So life on the Broo looks set to change again.

Iain Duncan Smith is now Secretary of State for Work and Pensions.

He's expected to announce that he'll be replacing all the different benefits with just one -

the so-called "universal credit".

The idea of the universal credit is to simplify the benefits system.

If you're currently unemployed

but thinking of getting a job, it may be the case

that, for every £10 you earn, you'll lose say £8 in different benefits.

So, you're effectively paying tax at 80%, which is much higher

than even the best paid chief executive is being taxed.

So the idea of the universal credit

is to simplify that and to ensure that tax rate is reduced so that

people see a real benefit from taking on extra hours

of work, moving to a new place to take a new job and so on.

We've had 100 years of life on the Broo, it's part of our culture.

An everyday presence.

Now, a century on, is it about to turn full circle?

Many governments have shown a desire to simplify the system.

They think that by getting back to basics, by cutting things down, that the system will work better.

But the system's been simplified many times and it always becomes more complicated again.

There's a good reason for that.

The circumstances that it's dealing with affect millions of people.

Many of those people have extremely complicated lives.

What we get is the impression from the Government that things have always

been done badly and ineffectively and improperly and they'll be the first people to do it right.

I'm sorry, they're deluding themselves.

Robbie Dalrymple found work after nine months on the Broo

with the Wise Group - an organisation helping the long-term unemployed back to work.

These days, Hugh Gaffney is a union official in North Lanarkshire.

Mark Lyken spent his time on the Broo creatively and now makes a living as an artist.

And Rebecca, Dylan, Bobby and Megan are still hoping to get the jobs

that'll help them escape life on the Broo.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd

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