Laura Bambrick

Yeah, that would be the main concern for unions, that this...

could potentially amount to a wage subsidy for, as you said, those precarious, insecure jobs.

Now, there is a balancing point, a sweet spot, where you have to help people, especially people that have been outside of the labour market,

for a long time to dip their toe in.

They might be coming to the workforce with no experience or it's a long time since they have had experience.

So enabling them to work a short amount of time to get those jobs

probably in rural areas where there isn't a lot of job opportunities, there could be that there is only part time hours available.

So it's definitely to find that sweet spot where you're facilitating people

into full-time, permanent, good employment, but also at the same time ensuring that, as you said, not risking that the public purse is subsidising these bad jobs.

Yeah, so a lot of people listening in this morning will think, you know, reform of the welfare state, it doesn't impact them.

They're part of the 2.8 million people who either have a job or have a business to go to today.

But the thing about this payment is it's very easy in the next downturn when it comes.

I don't know when it'll come, but it will come.

It's called an economic cycle for a reason.

And it's very easy then to find yourself out of work or out of business for more than nine months when your entitlement to a contributory payment ends.

So you and yours are likely to find yourself reliant on this working age payment.

So you have more skin in the game in this situation.

than you realise.

Now, this is only a very early days consultation.

It's really a temperature test.