Oral Answers to Questions

Johanna Baxter Excerpts

Monday 23rd June 2025 Commons Chamber

[Torsten Bell]

I do not want to try the patience of the House but, as I have said, employment is up by 500,000 under this Government. [Interruption.] Conservative Members do not like to talk about that. The hon. Gentleman mentions what British business wants—what British business wants is a Government who are actually fixing the public finances and the public services that mean that when a member of staff gets sick, they do not sit on a waiting list for years, as they did under the previous Government. The Conservatives like to attack the Employment Rights Bill, but stopping good employers being undercut by bad is the pro-business thing to do.

[Johanna Baxter (Paisley and Renfrewshire South) (Lab)]

Paisley jobcentre runs a “Take a job to work” day, where work coaches look for local employment opportunities and take those suggestions into the jobcentre to match jobseekers with local jobs. Does my hon. Friend agree that that is a good example of local innovation in jobcentres, and would the Government consider sharing that good practice across the rest of the country?

[Torsten Bell]

I thank everyone in Paisley who has been working on those practices—it is exactly the kind of innovation we like to see. Under the Conservatives, only one in six employers said they bothered to engage with their local jobcentre, which is exactly what we need to change with our reforms to Jobcentre Plus. I thank everyone in Paisley, but there is much more to do right across the UK.