HC Deb 28 June 1994 vol 245 c677
16. Mr. Booth

To ask the Secretary of State for Employment what assessment he has made of the likely effects of the proposed job seeker's allowance on the efficiency of the labour market.

Mr. Michael Forsyth

The job seeker's allowance will encourage wider and more effective job search.

Mr. Booth

Does the job seeker's allowance encourage imaginative use of long-term unemployment? Does it also remotivate people who have lost their motivation through consistent rejection? Is it one more imaginative and exciting scheme from a party which is imaginative and exciting?

Mr. Forsyth

My hon. Friend is right. The introduction of the job seeker's allowance will mean that those people who have been unemployed for a long time will be given the help and support that they are entitled to expect to get them back into work and that those people who are resting on unemployment benefit will find themselves being asked to take more active steps to find work. That will be good for them and good for the economy as a whole.