Oral Answers to Questions

Barry Gardiner Excerpts

Monday 3rd November 2014 Commons Chamber

[Esther McVey]

My hon. Friend is right that jobcentres are important. The question is how we best support jobcentres and claimants. Can young people in rural areas make their claim on the phone or online, and can we align various other organisations so that they can come together and help support people in a fully rounded way? Obviously, what we are doing is right, because, as he says, in his area employment is up and unemployment is down.

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

The Minister budgeted for 160,000 young people to complete the Youth Contract wage incentive payments. When the Department pulled the plug on that scheme, fewer than 10,000 young people had actually completed the 26 weeks on the programme. Will she tell the House what went wrong?

[Esther McVey]

What I will do is tell the House what went right, as that is what people want to know. We have a record number of young people in work. We had a £1 billion Youth Contract, within which was an array of different opportunities—work experience, sector-based work academies and wage incentives. Working with businesses, we found that work experience, sector-based work academies and apprenticeships were the things that they want, and they are the ones offering the jobs. We have seen 40,000 young people—not 10,000 young people—start in that way. We have redeployed the money from the Youth Contract to areas where it will be most effective. The situation is far from what the hon. Gentleman outlined, as what we are doing is working.