Oral Answers to Questions

Julia Lopez Excerpts

Monday 23rd June 2025 Commons Chamber

[Liz Kendall]

The hon. Gentleman will know that that assessment does not take into account all the steps that we are taking to get more sick and disabled people into work, with the biggest ever investment into support—support that was denied to them by Conservative Members, who wrote people off, consigned them to a life on benefit and then blamed them. We take a different approach. We believe that sick and disabled people should have the same rights, chances and choices to work as anybody else. That will be a key measure in tackling poverty.

[Julia Lopez (Hornchurch and Upminster) (Con)]

3. What assessment she has made of the potential implications for her policies of recent trends in the level of unemployment.

[Sir Ashley Fox (Bridgwater) (Con)]

14. What assessment she has made of the potential implications for her policies of recent trends in the level of unemployment.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Torsten Bell)]

We all know the importance of work, and since the election we have seen employment rise by 500,000, but Britain is a country that has too few young adults in work or education, and where the post-pandemic employment recovery has taken too long. That is why we will continue our reforms to support more people into work.

[Julia Lopez]

To cut spending and balance the books, Labour has to get people off welfare, but the Chancellor’s job tax and the Deputy Prime Minister’s unemployment Bill mean that there are fewer jobs for them to go to. Some 285 more of my constituents are out of work than last year, and since the Budget a quarter of a million jobs have vanished. A rise in public sector roles in the same period is probably masking a far deeper crisis going on in the private sector. There is no joined-up thinking. Has the Secretary of State warned her Cabinet colleagues that their policies are making her job impossible?

[Torsten Bell]

The Secretary of State inherited a labour market that was a mess under the Conservatives, with nearly 1 million young people not in education or training, and 2.8 million too sick to work. Employment is up by 500,000. Economic inactivity—[Interruption.] Conservative Members might not like to hear it, but economic inactivity is down by 300,000 under this Government. No one on the Government Benches will take lectures on a good labour market from the Conservatives.