Social Security: Claimants Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateBaroness Jones of Moulsecoomb
Main Page: Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (Green Party - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb's debates with the Department for Work and Pensions
(7 years, 8 months ago)
Lords ChamberI am in a difficult position because we are about to make our response to the NAO report, which is a formal process, so I do not have that response. Clearly the NAO concentrates on value for money. It wants more evidence and the department will be looking at providing it with some of that evidence in reply.
My Lords, the Minister must know that the Government’s own review of mandatory workfare shows that a young person is twice as likely to find work if they drop out of the scheme and three times as likely to find work if they do not participate in the first place. Will the Minister accept that the Government’s review has validity and update social security practices accordingly?
If the question is about how the benefit system works for the young, we are now running one of the lowest levels of inactivity we have seen for young people. In the benefits system as a whole, we are looking at the highest-ever employment rate and one of the lowest levels of poverty since the 1980s. Household incomes at an all-time high, we have the lowest levels of children in workless households since records began and the lowest income inequality. If the noble Baroness is saying that the system is not working, how do these figures stand up? We are transforming the system and producing real results.