Work Test (Hansard, 16 December 1986)

§ 2. Mr. Willie W. Hamilton
asked the Paymaster General if he will make a statement on the progress made in the application of the new availability-for-work test.

§ Mr. Kenneth Clarke
The procedural changes that I announced to the House on 28 October are being introduced progressively. Around two thirds of unemployment benefit offices are now operating them. The aim is to have them operating in all offices by the end of January.
The procedures are designed to meet criticism from the Public Accounts Committee of shortcomings in testing the long-standing requirement that benefit should be paid only to unemployed claimants who are available for work.

§ Mr. Hamilton
Despite the Minister's protestations, does he not accept that there is now a widely held view that the sole purpose of this disreputable exercise is to cut the unemployment figures without tackling the problem? Does he accept that if the results of the pilot schemes were projected nationally 25,000 or so would be removed from the register each month, without a single new job resulting? Is not his message to the unemployed, "If we cannot get you a job, we shall stop counting you"?

§ Mr. Clarke
It is merely a new method of ensuring that benefit is paid only to people who are entitled to it. I do not agree with the hon. Gentleman that what he described is a widely held view. It is held by a few activists in the Labour movement and those associated with it.

§ Mr. Andrew MacKay
Is my right hon. and learned Friend aware that there is widespread support in my constituency for the new availability-for-work scheme? In Bracknell, we allegedly have more than 7 per cent. unemployment and 500 vacancies at the jobcentre.

§ Mr. Clarke
I am grateful to my hon. Friend. If we did not ask questions of people who claim benefit, we should be handing out benefit simply on request. That seems suddenly to have become the policy of the Labour and Liberal parties, but I do not think that they have widespread public support for it.

§ Mr. James Lamond
Is it sensible to suggest to an unemployed family man in the north-west of England that he should move to the south-east to find a job, where he may discover that he requires a mortgage that is three times the size of the one that he has in the north-west, with the result that his wage will not cover the increased mortgage payments and he will be worse off by moving than by staying at home on the dole?

§ Mr. Clarke
That does not sound very sensible to me. As far as I am aware, nobody has had that suggested to them as part of the availability for work test. All we are applying is the usual rule that people have to be reasonably available for work that is likely to be available in the area in which they live.

§ Mr. Marlow
As, according to the Library, in two constituencies in booming London—Vauxhall and Bermondsey—30 per cent. of males are unemployed and drawing benefit, this seems to be massive evidence of fiddle, fraud and idleness. Will my right hon. and learned Friend ensure that the availability-for-work test is reinforced in those areas? Currently, the taxpayer is being deprived of £40 million in two constituencies alone.

§ Mr. Clarke
There has always been a test of availability, because there has always been an availability rule. We have introduced a form which seeks to ensure, as my hon. Friend and many others would wish, that benefit is paid only to those who qualify for it. In London there are many job vacancies and many opportunities to get back into the job market. We are introducing the restart scheme to steer back into work people who want it, but when we do that we find that we are criticised by the Opposition as well.

§ Mr. Evans
Will the Paymaster General now acknowledge that the major purpose of this cynical scheme it to reduce the unemployment figures prior to the next general election, without creating one extra job? Will he confirm that many of the questions in the questionnaire have been devised to trap or trick the unemployed into losing their benefit?

§ Mr. Clarke
I am weary of hearing the old trick-question line, because nobody has ever cited a trick question to me. I ask the hon. Gentleman and his colleagues to confirm that the Labour party's policy is to give out benefit to anybody who wants it without asking any questions and that, if people claim benefit for more than 12 months, we should do absolutely nothing to offer them help to get into employment.

§ Sir William Clark
Will my right hon. and learned Friend remind the House that anybody who enjoys unemployment benefit—

§ Mr. Evans
Enjoys it?

§ Sir William Clark
—is enjoying it at the expense of the taxpayer? Is it not completely unfair that taxpayers' money should be used when the person who receives it is not available for work?

§ Mr. Kenneth Clarke
I am sure that my hon. Friend and others agree that the average taxpayer is perfectly content to pay unemployment benefit to somebody who is out of work, looking for it and cannot find it. The average taxpayer would, however, be amazed to hear the Opposition demanding that we should hand out benefit to anybody and that somehow it is harassment to ask people to demonstrate that they are looking for work and are therefore entitled to benefit. As the Labour party passed the law that we are enforcing, it is high time that it made it clear that it proposes to repeal that law, so that anybody can have benefit when the Labour party gets back into power.