Jobseekers (Back to Work Schemes) Bill

Debate between Liam Byrne and Caroline Lucas

Tuesday 19th March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Caroline Lucas]

Does the right hon. Gentleman not recognise that many people in this country will be shocked to learn that the official Opposition want to vote for this Bill precisely because they want to impose sanctions on people on workfare? Let me give him the example of a 58-year-old constituent of mine who has been unemployed for seven months. She was told that she had to travel miles to work in a Scope charity shop in Worthing or lose benefits. She could not afford to get to Worthing, so she offered to work in the Scope shop in Brighton, but the jobcentre would not allow it. Should she be sanctioned?

[Mr Byrne]

The hon. Lady raises an extremely important point, and that is why we have sought to ensure that the Bill includes our safeguards, which preserve the right to appeal with good cause, and the 13-month appeal window during which people can lodge objections to the sanctions regime. To answer the hon. Lady directly, I do believe that the DWP should be equipped with the power to issue sanctions. That general foundation has been in the hands of Ministers for more than a century. The new deal programmes and the future jobs fund that Labour put in place had sanctions attached to them—indeed, they were tightened by the Welfare Reform Act 2009—and I do not believe that those powers should be empty ones. However, nor do I believe they should be in the ether—in the hands of Ministers who have no obligation to put in place genuine back-to-work programmes that are better than doing nothing, unlike today’s Work programme.