Covid-19: Department for Work and Pensions Update

Lord Balfe Excerpts

Tuesday 5th May 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Balfe (Con)]

I thank the Minister and the staff of the DWP for this amazing effort. We should really be loving not only the NHS, but the DWP. I am reminded during this crisis of the old saying that politics is about giving other people’s money away. There has to be a limit to how much we can spend. I would like the Minister to tell us, first, what is being done to advertise these 58,000 vacancies, because everybody who takes one is someone who is not reliant on public funds. Secondly, at the risk of being unpopular, I remember the outpouring of sympathy after Grenfell Tower but none the less, a number of people were convicted of fraud. Is the DWP still vigorously pursuing people who are wrongly claiming? I am sure that there are some and we should not let the present situation blind us to the fact that some people might be trying to take advantage of it.

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook]

I thank my noble friend. Yes, there are still 58,000 jobs on the website. It is a new website and it is easy to access. For anybody who is still looking for a job—I know that there are jobs and schemes for fruit and vegetable picking this summer for those people who might be furloughed but still want to work—the website is there. We are still encouraging people to go for jobs that can be done safely. As far as fraud is concerned, the capacity in the system at the moment is creating difficulties, particularly for lawyers in the department, because of everything else that they are doing. I will get an answer to my noble friend on what we are doing about that.