Oral Answers to Questions Debate
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Jim McGovern
Main Page: Jim McGovern (Labour - Dundee West)Department Debates - View all Jim McGovern's debates with the Department for Work and Pensions
(10 years, 4 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr Duncan Smith
That is exactly right. The reality that my hon. Friend has spotted is that the Opposition have voted against every single one of our welfare reforms. Not only would the welfare bill have been £45 billion higher under them, but more people would be out of work and they would have failed the British people.
Jim McGovern (Dundee West) (Lab)
On the Work programme, can the Minister explain why Dundee is once again the least supported city in Scotland, with only 9.79% of people being helped back into work by the programme? Will she apologise to the people of Dundee and explain why 90% are still not being helped?
The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Esther McVey)
The majority of people are being helped by the Work programme. As I said earlier, this is the first time we have had a co-ordinated approach to support, and it has supported 2.5 million people so far. Of course we have to make it better and support more people, but 444,000—that figure is from industry statistics—have actually got a job.