Oral Answers to Questions

Gordon Marsden Excerpts

Wednesday 18th December 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I am struggling to find anything that relates to the responsibility of the Prime Minister in the hon. Gentleman’s question. Therefore, we will proceed with Mr Gordon Marsden.

[Mr Gordon Marsden (Blackpool South) (Lab)]

Q6. As the Prime Minister sits down for Christmas dinner to chillax with his family and friends, will he spare a thought for my Blackpool constituents and 500,000 others, whose Christmas will be mired in the incompetence and random cruelty of the benefit sanctions imposed by the Department for Work and Pensions? My casework on this includes a woman denied jobseeker’s allowance for doing voluntary work at one local branch of a national charity rather than at another. Will his new year resolution be to resolve the chaos of sanctions and of universal credit?

[The Prime Minister]

I think the best thing we can do for the hon. Gentleman’s constituents, and indeed everyone’s constituents, is to keep on with the economic plan that is generating more jobs in our country. If we look at the north-west, we see that the number of people employed is up by 37,000 since the election, and unemployment has fallen by 29,000 since the election. We need to keep on with that, while of course making sure that the benefit system works for people who need it, but he does not do his constituents any favours by talking down the performance of the economy.