(9 years, 8 months ago)
Commons Chamber17. What steps he plans to take to support older people experiencing long-term unemployment.
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.
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?
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.