Paul Rowen

I have listened carefully to the right hon. Lady's argument. Will she confirm that employers who accept long-term unemployed will receive a proportion of the benefits as payment for taking them on under the Conservative proposals, and will she tell us at what level that will be set?

— from debate entitled “Economic Recovery and Welfare”

The three speeches/headings immediately before

  1. 1 earlier: Theresa May

    The differential will be determined by the nature of the individual, the difficulty of getting them into work and how much skills training and other training they need. We will be able to offer this sort of support to long-term unemployed people, but the Government have not been able to do so, because Ministers from the Department for Work and Pensions have not been able to carry the argument with their Treasury colleagues. Underlying such a scheme is the ability to pay for programmes to help to get people into work from the benefits saved by getting them into work—in the jargon, the so-called DEL-AME switch.

    It is a great disappointment that DWP Ministers have failed to take that argument to the Treasury, because this is not just about accountancy but about helping people to have a better quality of life by helping them to get into work. We must make sure that when this country comes out of recession, we have people who are trained, skilled and able to take the jobs that are available. We must make sure that we do not come out of recession with an increase in long-term unemployment, but sadly, under the Government's proposals, I fear that that is exactly what will happen.

  2. 2 earlier: Frank Dobson

    Will the differential aspect of the scheme mean that payment for getting someone into work in an area of high unemployment will be higher than for getting someone into work in an area of low unemployment?

  3. 3 earlier: Theresa May

    In the present circumstances, there is not a large pool of jobs for people to move into. It is important that we start the work now with those people who are long-term unemployed to ensure that when the jobs become available as the economy recovers, people have the skills and have been given training and support, so that they can take the job opportunities that are on offer. It would be shameful if the country came out of recession, and if more jobs were available, but those of the 2.6 million people on incapacity benefit who were able to work were still denied the help and support to get them into the workplace that could be given to them by the sort of scheme that I am talking about and that a Conservative Government would introduce.

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