A Chance For Prisoners To Work For A Living Tax Free
“CHERIE Blair, wife of the former prime minister, is leading a drive for prisoners to earn up to £10,000 a year doing work in jail for firms which are household names.” So reports the Times.
“She has endorsed a pilot scheme in a category C prison in which serious offenders are paid the minimum wage – £5.52 an hour – to work for companies such as Kentucky Fried Chicken and Clifford Chance, the City law firm.” It light-fingered lickin’ good.
Who better to employ villains than lawyers and a take-away food shop? Perhaps call centres, with their innate fondness for small cubicles and battery-farmed workers. Or public schools.
Interestingly, because inmates pay no rent on their cells, no council tax and need incur no transport costs they could be left better off than low-paid workers outside.
In fairness, though, the Howard League for Penal Reform suggests the prisoners pay income tax, “but the government is refusing to accept contributions because the inmates might then have workers’ rights.”
The last thing you want is for a prisoner to bring a case of constructive dismissal…
