Oral Answers to Questions

Tony Baldry Excerpts

Monday 18th October 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Duncan Smith]

The greatest form of measurement that we can use is that which will apply to the Work programme, whereby bodies will essentially be paid by results. In other words, if they do not get people back to work, they will not receive the money that will allow them to make any kind of profit at all. The best way of measuring them is to pay them when they are successful, and not, as happened with one scheme under the last Government, before they are successful.

[Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con)]

4. What support his Department plans to make available to people on incapacity benefit to enable them to take up employment.

[The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Chris Grayling)]

We will make the Work programme available to incapacity benefit claimants who are moved back into the jobseeker stream. They will be eligible for support through the Work programme. We will pay an enhanced price to those providers who work with people coming off incapacity benefit to make sure that they get the tailored support they need.

[Tony Baldry]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for that reply. Will he make sure that Jobcentre Plus, work clubs, and disability organisations can ensure that no matter where people are—whether they are on incapacity benefit or in Remploy factories that are making losses—they know where they can access support and get the skills training that they need to get back into the world of work?

[Chris Grayling]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. One of the central goals of our work over the next 12 to 18 months is to start a process of ensuring that far more people with long-term health problems and disabilities have the opportunity to get into the workplace. We will take whatever steps are necessary, primarily through Jobcentre Plus, to ensure that those people are handled effectively, and are steered to the right support through the Work programme. The aim is to achieve a goal that we all want, which is to allow as many of them as possible to find jobs.