Oral Answers to Questions

Sheila Gilmore Excerpts

Monday 26th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

We shall squeeze in one more. I call Sheila Gilmore.

[Sheila Gilmore (Edinburgh East) (Lab)]

18. What recent assessment he has made of the reasons for changes in the number of employment and support allowance claimants.

[The Minister for Disabled People (Mr Mark Harper)]

Under this Government, the number of people in receipt of out-of-work benefits has fallen by 899,000, and there are 93,000 fewer people on incapacity benefit since May 2010.

[Sheila Gilmore]

I thank the Minister for that answer, but I think he is absolutely clear that the number of people on incapacity benefit who have been found unfit for work is far higher than the Department for Work and Pensions predicted. Is it not time that Ministers dropped the scrounger rhetoric and accepted that if people are to move back towards employment, they need real help and support?

[Mr Harper]

I do not know whom the hon. Lady has heard using that rhetoric, but it is certainly not me or members of this Government. [Interruption.] It is no good her waving at us. It may be reported like that in newspapers, but Ministers do not use that sort of language. I have been very clear that people who are able to go to work with the right support will receive employment and support allowance. I am sure she was listening to the long exchange we had earlier on mental health support. Half the people on ESA have a mental health problem. She will have heard me set out the considerable range of things we are doing to help them to get back into work.