Oral Answers to Questions

Gareth Bacon Excerpts

Monday 19th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Guy Opperman]

My hon. Friend is right. Economic inactivity is down, employment is up and vacancies are down, thanks in part to the efforts of my hon. Friend and Keighley Jobcentre Plus, whose next jobs fair is on Wednesday week and will be attended by 17 employers across all sectors. I urge everyone in Keighley to attend as well.

[Gareth Bacon (Orpington) (Con)]

T1.   If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.

[The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Mel Stride)]

When I was appointed to this job, I came to the House and said that one of our key focuses would be economic inactivity, which, as we have just heard, has fallen: it is down by 45% since its peak, and was down by 140,000 in the last quarter alone. Another key focus is bearing down on fraud, and fraud levels have fallen by some 10% across our benefits system since we published our fraud plan in May last year.

[Gareth Bacon]

Some on the political left have made much noise about the third-party universal basic income pilots that have been launched in recent days. Does my right hon. Friend agree that the concept of a universal basic income was roundly rejected even during the pandemic, and that this kind of uneven, untargeted and dependency-creating communism is doomed to failure?