Oral Answers to Questions

Steve Reed Excerpts

Monday 18th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I agree with my hon. Friend. The reality is that of more than 19,000 householders capped in mid-September 2013, 60% were lone parents and 78% were capped by £100 or less a week. This is a system that is returning fairness to the whole programme. The Opposition opposed the cap, and it is worth remembering that even though the trade union leaders opposed it, 80% of Unite members support our policy on welfare reform, as I discovered from a poll the other day.

[Mr Steve Reed (Croydon North) (Lab)]

6. What progress he has made on delivering his target of 160,000 Youth Contract wage incentives by April 2015; and if he will make a statement.

[Barbara Keeley (Worsley and Eccles South) (Lab)]

13. What progress he has made on delivering his target of 160,000 Youth Contract wage incentives by April 2015; and if he will make a statement.

[Mr Reed]

As the Secretary of State is well aware, in the first 14 months of this programme his Department delivered less than 3% of what he promised. Together with the appalling underperformance of the Work programme, and with Ministers and civil servants at each other’s throats over the chaotic introduction of universal credit, is this not yet another example of how this Secretary of State promises much but delivers little?

[Esther McVey]

I am quite sure that what the hon. Gentleman was reading out was a piece of fiction and I would like to give him the correct figures. The Youth Contract is made up of many component parts. One is wage incentives, and there is a wage incentive for apprenticeships, and another is for work experience. Of the 113,000 people who went on work experience, 50% have a job, and 21,000 have wage incentives, and that figure is rising by 4,000 a month. Youth unemployment has fallen for 17 consecutive months. In the hon. Gentleman’s constituency, it has fallen 35% in the last year. Perhaps he wants to congratulate us on that.