Jonathan Ashworth
Main Page: Jonathan Ashworth (Labour (Co-op) - Leicester South)Department Debates - View all Jonathan Ashworth's debates with the Department for Work and Pensions
(12 years, 8 months ago)
Commons ChamberI have no doubt that the vast majority of people who are unemployed are actively looking for jobs. Indeed, that is a condition of payment of jobseeker’s allowance. We would not pay people if they were not actively seeking work. The very fact that there are many unemployed people in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency—I grew up near Walsall, so I know the area well—is why we have to get the nation’s public finances on an even keel. We have seen what happens to countries that do not do so.
Further to his answers to my hon. Friend the Member for Edmonton (Mr Love) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead (Mr Field), who is no longer in his place, does the Minister accept that the changes to working tax credits act as a disincentive to work? Does that explain why, according to newspaper reports, the Secretary of State is so angry about that change and baffled that the Liberal Democrats pushed for it?
There is a danger of missing the central points here, which are that people are better off in work, and we want to go further; that the tax credits are part of a package of measures, and I have listed repeatedly the many things that make work pay; and that our increases in personal tax allowances, for example, will make work pay far more than in the past. The coalition is united on that.