Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Phillip Lee and Iain Duncan Smith

Monday 7th December 2015 Commons Chamber

[Dr Phillip Lee (Bracknell) (Con)]

1. What progress he has made on reducing the number of people in workless households.

[The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Mr Iain Duncan Smith)]

With your permission, Mr Speaker, given the weekend’s events in my borough, may I take the opportunity, on behalf of myself and colleagues in all parts of the House, to wish a speedy recovery to those who were injured by the tragic events at the tube station in Leytonstone?

When we took office, almost one in five households had no one in work and around 1.4 million people had been on benefits for most of the previous decade. Since 2010 the number of workless households has fallen by over 680,000 to its lowest level since records began.

[Dr Lee]

My constituency covers the major part of Bracknell Forest. In 2014 it had the second highest percentage of working households in the country. Does my right hon. Friend agree that continuing to encourage households into work is one of the most effective ways of improving the life chances of everyone in that family?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

My hon. Friend is right that growing up in a working family is crucial for the life chances of children. When this Government took office, there were more than 2.5 million children growing up in workless households. That has fallen by nearly half a million since 2010. By targeting worklessness, the five new life chance measures that we have introduced will make an enormous difference to children’s lives. I understand that there are now almost no workless households in the south-east.