Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Sandra Osborne and Steve Webb(9 years, 5 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Sandra Osborne (Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock) (Lab)
17. What steps he plans to take to support older people experiencing long-term unemployment.
The Minister for Pensions (Steve Webb)
We have taken a range of steps. Most recently, in last week’s autumn statement, we announced a new pilot that will test how we support older claimants to help them return to work. It will benefit 3,000 older claimants whose age is a barrier to their finding work.
Sandra Osborne
Why does the Work programme fail the over-50s so badly, and why has it taken the Government more than three years even to begin to do anything about that?
Steve Webb
On the contrary, the labour market performance of older workers has been among the best during the last four years. During a period of slow economic growth, older workers actually did the best. Nevertheless, we are not complacent, hence the new pilots that I announced last week.