Julian Brazier backs welfare work programme

Julian Brazier has welcomed the Government work programme initiative as our current system of benefits is stopping people from entering the workplace.

The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Chris Grayling): …I am keen to get information out there that we are looking at ways to ensure that that can happen, despite the rules about national statistics, which we have to obey very carefully. If the hon. Gentleman wants some statistics about employment programmes, let me share a set with him. The flexible new deal, to which he referred, cost the taxpayer £770 million and delivered 50,000 six-month job outcomes. He can do the maths on that—it amounts to approximately £14,000 per six-month job outcome. That is one failure of the welfare-to-work programmes we inherited, and that is why the welfare-to-work package that we have put together through the Work programme will be better value for the taxpayer and do a better job for the unemployed.

Mr Julian Brazier (Canterbury) (Con): Following that robust answer, does my right hon. Friend agree that when we are able to publish these data, they are likely to show the success of putting work out to contract when we see that organisations such as the Shaw Trust are much better at providing work for disabled people than the work done in-house by the Benefits Agency?

Chris Grayling: When I visit Work programme providers —I have now visited most of them—I certainly find a great deal of enthusiasm, a sense of purpose and successful progress. I hope that that will show through in the official statistics when the time arises. I am not in the business of burying good news, and I very much hope that we will be getting the good news about the Work programme out there as soon as we possibly can.

(Hansard: 23 Jan 2012, Column 1- 2)

After Work and Pensions Questions Julian said,

“Tackling unemployment urgently needs to be addressed because not only is it bad for taxpayers, who have had to pay the bill for a welfare budget that has risen by 40 per cent, but it is also bad for the families caught in the welfare trap. It is no coincidence that families who are out of work or reliant on benefits are significantly more prone to higher levels of debt, family breakdown, alcohol and drug addiction and crime.”

“The Government is clear that it wants to help people who can work get back into employment and that disabled people who need unconditional support will continue to receive it. I believe that it is vital that we support people who were written off to a lifetime on benefits into jobs and the new Work Programme will help them overcome the barriers they face to get back into work.”