§ 11. Mr. WatersonTo ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what plans he has to introduce a back-to-work bonus. [36966]
§ Mr. LilleyWe shall be introducing a back-to-work bonus in the jobseeker's allowance and income support from 7 October. This will allow an estimated 150,000 people per year to receive a tax-free lump sum of up to £1,000 when they leave benefit to take up work.
§ Mr. WatersonDoes my right hon. Friend agree that that is just one of a number of excellent proposals to help people off welfare and into work? Does he agree that the national minimum wage would have the opposite effect by destroying jobs? Is that not just another example of new Labour, new danger?
§ Mr. LilleyMy hon. Friend is quite right. This is one of an array of imaginative measures to get people off benefit and into work. Almost all the measures proposed by the Labour party—such as the minimum wage and the social chapter, which would destroy jobs—are means of getting people out of work and on to benefit.
§ Madam SpeakerI call Mr. Skinner.
§ Mr. SkinnerThe Minister is not ready. [Interruption.] That is better.
Is it true that the Government, worried by all the ministerial resignations, plan to introduce a back-to-work bonus for Ministers who resign, or will they have to settle for a reduced earnings allowance? Ministers are to get severance pay while the rest of the workers have it taken away from them.
§ Mr. LilleyI am sorry that I nearly missed participating in the Lilley and Skinner show. I assure the hon. Gentleman that we are more interested in the serious business of getting people back into real jobs than making petty party political points.