Jobseekers (Back to Work Schemes) Bill

Eilidh Whiteford Excerpts

Tuesday 19th March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Dr Whiteford]

I do not intend to detain the House for long, but it is worth reiterating the point I made on Second Reading, which is that people deserve a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work. Throughout the afternoon, we have heard from a number of hon. Members the shortcomings of the Government’s Work programme and the failings of the rather blunt instrument that is the sanctions regime, but I have consciously refrained from going down the route of discussing those in detail, because the key issue is those sanctions that have already been found by the courts to be unlawful and whether it is right retrospectively to shift the legislative goalposts to penalise people who have been unlawfully sanctioned. I do not think that that is in any way justifiable, and nothing I have heard today has reassured me on that point.

The Government have had an opportunity today to hear concerns from Members on both sides of the House about the problems with unpaid labour in the sanctions regime. Even at this late stage, I urge Ministers to think again and take responsibility for the mistakes that have been made and to step back from a scheme that relies on unpaid labour. It is not helping people to find real jobs, it is actively preventing real job creation and it is undermining efforts from people in the voluntary sector and elsewhere, which are more likely to be effective in helping people who are a long way from the labour market to move into paid employment.

It is never reasonable to insist that people work for no pay. That is not sustainable and it just is not working. Although the debate has been heavily undersubscribed, with fewer than half the Members of the House turning up to vote on Second Reading, it has certainly received a lot of attention out there, and I am sure that I am not the only Member who has received lots of correspondence from constituents who are concerned about the underlying principles and who can see the inherent injustice of the proposition.

I hope that Members who share my conviction that these measures are unworkable, unfair, profoundly regrettable and retrospective will join me and my colleagues in opposing them.