Oral Answers to Questions

John Healey Excerpts

Monday 3rd November 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Duncan Smith]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. It is worth highlighting one particularly revealing set of figures. For workless households, both the number and the rate are at record lows: 3.3 million and 15.9% are the lowest since ’96. Children in workless households number 1.5 million, at a rate of 12.7%—again, the lowest on record. Under Labour, some 2 million children lived in workless households. That is now collapsing, thanks to the work we are doing. Labour’s plans would only return us to the bad old days.

[John Healey (Wentworth and Dearne) (Lab)]

Why are jobcentre staff being told to say to people, “We are not here to help you to find work; we are simply here to check that you do it for yourself”?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I do not believe that that is correct. I have the highest respect for the people who man jobcentres all over the country, and who do a remarkable job in helping many of those who have fallen out of work to get back into it. Jobcentre staff now tell people that their own job is to help them to find and take work, but that they themselves have a responsibility to do whatever is necessary to find work and take it. Their job is a combination of helping people and ensuring that they perform their task of seeking work and taking it. I am sure that, actually, the right hon. Gentleman agrees that that is the right thing to do.