Oral question asked in the House of Commons, by James Clappison (Conservative). It was answered on Monday, 19 October 2009 on behalf of the Department for Work and Pensions.

Jobseeker's Allowance

Question: Will it not have been depressing for a newly unemployed person to have heard the Secretary of State's response in today's exchanges? Her first response to the unemployment crisis is to reach for the history books and rewrite the statistics from the 1990s. May I take the Minister for Employment and Welfare Reform back to the question that his colleague failed to answer about the young person's guarantee? Does not that guarantee take effect at 10 months—his policy and her policy is for 10 months—not 12 months, as she seems to think? [Interruption.] Is it not far too long for a young person to have to wait until they have been out of work for 10 months before they get the help they need? Would it not be far more appropriate for a young person to receive specialised individual help after six months?

Answer: The hon. Gentleman will know that a range of things are available to people from day one, such as basic skills training and referral to experts in respect of CV writing and so on, and that the young person's guarantee come in to force at 12 months. The future jobs fund, which his party opposes, comes into play at 10 months—so, of course, the Secretary of State was right. He should know that the Tories are the party of unemployment; in this recession, they oppose measures that the International Labour Organisation says saved between 7 million and 11 million jobs worldwide—500,000 in this country—and they are proposing measures that would put the level of unemployment up to 5 million. Time and again the Conservatives have moved people off unemployment and on to incapacity payments—we are reversing that.

Secondary information