Work Capability Assessment

Debate between Earl Attlee and Lord Freud

Wednesday 5th November 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Freud]

If the noble Baroness is referring to a newspaper story about 50p, I can assure her that that is not government policy.

[Earl Attlee (Con)]

My Lords, what progress is being made in getting more disabled people working, which is so important for their self-esteem?

[Lord Freud]

We have seen 116,000 disabled people return to the workforce this year. That is a 4% increase and is faster than the 2.6% rate of increase which is the average.

Unemployment: Young People

Debate between Earl Attlee and Lord Freud

Tuesday 28th October 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Freud]

The Governor of the Bank of England has said that the only way that we are going to get growth in real wages is by recovering productivity in the economy. One way is clearly to reduce dependency and to get 1.7 million extra people into work. The second way is to get the skills base up, and there are now some really good signs that we are moving that up by serious percentage points. The third way is progression in work, so that people earn more. That is what universal credit is all about.

[Earl Attlee (Con)]

My Lords, is it not the case that we have never had as many people in work as we have now?

[Lord Freud]

We now have 30.7 million people in work. It is not just about the number; we are now at a 73% rate of employment, which is little short of the all-time high.

Introduction: Baroness Smith of Newnham

Debate between Earl Attlee and Lord Freud

Tuesday 21st October 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Freud]

As my noble friend said, the issue is that we are doing everything we can to help people into the workplace. It was a very encouraging assessment from the Monetary Policy Committee of the Bank of England, which said:

“A tightening in the eligibility requirements for some state benefits might also have led to an intensification of job search”.

That echoes something that the deputy governor had said a little while before. It is apparent that our reforms are working, with employment up by 1.7 million since 2010 and record numbers of people now in work.

[Earl Attlee (Con)]

My Lords, the Oakley review suggested that some claimants do not understand—or even open—their correspondence about sanctions. What are we doing about this?

[Lord Freud]

Matthew Oakley was very concerned about the communications aspects of talking to claimants about sanctions. We have taken that point very seriously. Indeed, we have accepted his recommendations on that and are going further; we are reviewing and improving all our claimant communications on sanctions across every benefit, and we aim to ensure that people understand that they have received a sanction and why they have received it. We have introduced a claimant communications unit that tries to get the language right—because, as many noble Lords know, some of the language that the DWP put out in the past was clunky at best.