Judge rules back-to-work schemes are lawful

GOvernment back-to-work schemes, criticised as forced labour, have been ruled lawful.

A judge rejected jobless graduate Cait Reilly's claim that a scheme requiring her to work for free at a Poundland discount store breached human rights laws banning slavery.

Mr Justice Foskett, sitting at the High Court in London, said that "characterising such a scheme as involving or being analogous to slavery or forced labour seems to me to be a long way from contemporary thinking".

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