Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Mel Stride and Mick Whitley

Monday 6th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mick Whitley (Birkenhead) (Lab)]

4. What estimate he has made of levels of economic inactivity in towns and cities.

[The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Mel Stride)]

The Office for National Statistics regularly publishes statistics relating to estimates of local inactivity. I have been leading work across Government with a further piece on participation, and the Chancellor and I will shortly be setting out more details of our plans.

[Mick Whitley]

Some 2.5 million people are economically inactive as a result of long-term illness, and half a million have left the labour market due to ill health since 2019. Does the Secretary of State accept that tackling health inequalities and improving health outcomes in deprived communities such as Birkenhead is essential to achieving equitable economic growth? Can he inform the House what conversations he has had with colleagues across the Cabinet about the need for a holistic economic strategy that recognises that health and wealth are inextricably linked?

[Mel Stride]

It is important that we take into account the issues of poverty and regional variations to which the hon. Gentleman refers. They lie right at the heart of all the decisions we have taken. We have come forward in recent times with significant cost of living support measures. My hon. Friend the Member for Mid Sussex (Mims Davies) will be taking through the remaining stages of the Social Security (Additional Payments) (No. 2) Bill this very afternoon to address the people to whom the hon. Gentleman refers.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Mel Stride and Mick Whitley

Monday 23rd January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mick Whitley (Birkenhead) (Lab)]

T8. Last week, the Prime Minister became the second holder of his office to have been found to have broken the law while serving in No. 10. He has now been issued with a fixed penalty notice, his second in 12 months. But unlike many of my constituents who have been hit with punitive benefits sanctions, the Prime Minister is unlikely to be forced to resort to payday loans and food banks in order to get by. Will the Secretary of State concede that the Government policy of sanctioning claimants for even the most minor and accidental breaches of the rules is simply too severe?

[Mel Stride]

Sanctions quite rightly play a role in the work of work coaches and jobcentres, because the provision of benefits involves a contract between the jobcentre and those receiving those benefits, who in many cases have an obligation to seek work. Where that contract is broken by the individual who is meant to be seeking work, it is only right that a sanction should be available. But it has to be applied with due care—and, indeed, that is the case.