Government is being urged to change European law so that the unemployed can no longer be discriminated against.

Simon Collyer, founder of the Justice-and-Unemployment campaign, is pushing for fairer treatment for the unemployed, particularly by landlords.

Collyer says: “During the 1950s, refusing to let a property to ‘coloured’ people and advertising the fact was perfectly legal in the UK. Thankfully, such discrimination is now illegal, yet it still seems acceptable to discriminate against another minority group, the unemployed, even though many unemployed people are good tenants. This practice should be outlawed.

“Politicians are eager to put the blame for unemployment on the unemployed. In fact, there are many kinds of unemployed people and many reasons for unemployment. You only have to look at the redundancy figures of recent weeks to know that. Treating all unemployed people as lazy, feckless scroungers is just not fair, and we need a change in the law to make sure the unemployed are protected.”