Caroline Dinenage
Main Page: Caroline Dinenage (Conservative - Gosport)Department Debates - View all Caroline Dinenage's debates with the Department for Work and Pensions
(2 days, 13 hours ago)
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Liz Kendall
I have great respect for my hon. Friend, but let me say this to him. I have spent years chairing Feeding Leicester, the programme to end hunger in my city, and I know that I can look my constituents in the eye and say to them: I know that getting more people into better paid jobs is the key to their future success, and I know that dealing with their mental health problems, which are so prevalent, is essential. If someone can work, we will give them the help to get back on their feet, because that is the long-term route to tackling poverty and tackling inequality, which is what this Labour party is all about.
Dame Caroline Dinenage (Gosport) (Con)
Like the Secretary of State, I was elected in 2010, and I need to tell her that our recollections differ. When I came into this role, after 13 years of Labour government, 7.5% of young people in the Gosport constituency were not in education, employment or training. That number was down to 3% last year. Since Labour has taken office, 83,000 more people across this country of working age are now unemployed. Businesses in the sectors that take on so many young people across our constituencies, from adult social care to childcare to hair and beauty, are telling me that they are not taking on more staff as a result of her Chancellor’s changes to national insurance contributions. Surely the two are mutually incompatible.
Liz Kendall
Unless we cut waiting times and waiting lists in the NHS, people cannot get back to health and back to work—many employers have said to me that they are deeply concerned about that—and that is the reason we are investing an extra £26 billion into the NHS. We are dealing with precisely those key sectors—health and social care, construction and so on—where employers want people with the skills to do those jobs. We are overhauling our approach in DWP and setting up sector-based work academy programmes specifically tailored to employers’ needs. I know there is more we need to do to work with employers and help them get people back into work, and that is what this Government will deliver.