Oral Answers to Questions

Duncan Hames Excerpts

Monday 18th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Esther McVey]

Investors are not pulling out of the scheme. The hon. Gentleman is quite right that Deloitte is not working with Ingeus any more. Ingeus is one of the top performing Work programme primes. We expected to see movement in the industry. Deloitte came in and supported Ingeus as best it could, and now it is exiting, as happens when any businesses come together. As I said, the Work programme is working. The figures are going up, which is something that the Labour party could not achieve.

[Duncan Hames (Chippenham) (LD)]

Not only is the number of jobseekers falling, but the number of economically inactive people of working age has fallen by more than 400,000 under this Government to a level that has not been seen for more than two decades. Does the Minister agree that when people are returning to the labour market after a long period outside it, new jobseekers need support to prevent them from becoming long-term unemployed themselves?

[Esther McVey]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Let us look again at Labour’s record. It left 5 million people unemployed and claiming. We have taken the number of people who are claiming the three main benefits down by more than 500,000 since coming to power. Instead of criticising what we are doing, all Members should take pride in the fact that 1 million more people have jobs.