Oral Answers to Questions

Natascha Engel Excerpts

Wednesday 18th March 2015 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. It is a remarkable statistic that growth value added in the black country means that the area has grown faster than any other local enterprise partnership area in the entire country. Compare that with the so-called boom years of the 2000s, when private sector employment in the west midlands went down, not up, and it shows that we are seeing a genuinely national recovery. Huge credit must go to Jaguar Land Rover which, in the last five years, has tripled its turnover, doubled its sales and doubled its work force. Manufacturing in Britain is growing again, including in the west midlands, and we should be proud of that.

[Natascha Engel (North East Derbyshire) (Lab)]

Q4. In January, John Smedley in Clay Cross announced that it was making 21 seamstresses redundant. It took nearly two months before someone from the Jobcentre Plus rapid response team went in to see those women. The response was unsympathetic, unhelpful and anything but rapid. What has happened to rapid response and why have those workers been so badly let down?

[The Prime Minister]

I agree with the hon. Lady: it is important that Jobcentre Plus is there to help employees when they are let go by their employers. That is what it is there for. Generally speaking, I hear very good reports of what it does. Of course, in her constituency, the claimant count has come down in the last year by 29%, so the overall economic picture is good. I will certainly look at the specific case and see if Jobcentre Plus needs a boost, but the fact is that jobs are being created and the vacancies are there. The hon. Lady talks about seamstresses, and we are actually seeing production in the garment industry being brought back onshore, which is very good news.