§ Ms. Clare Shortasked the Paymaster General how many individual claimants have been disqualified from receiving benefit as a result of restart interviews of long-term unemployed claimants in each of the nine pilot areas, giving the reasons for disqualification; whether a standard form of questions is asked of individual claimants; and whether the responses of claimants are to be collated and the results made available.
§ Mr. LangPeople interviewed under the restart programme may subsequently be disqualified by the benefit authorities from receiving unemployment related benefits for two reasons: 651W
- (i) if they are not available for work or are imposing such restrictions on the kind of work they are prepared to accept that they have no reasonable prospects of securing employment; or
- (ii) if they refuse without good cause a suitable job or training opportunity.
These conditions apply to anyone receiving unemployment related benefits and not just to those interviewed under restart. The information requested for each pilot area is as follows:
Number of cases in which unemployment and/or supplementary benefit was disallowed (up to 27 June) Reason Pilot area Availability for work Refusal of suitable employment or training Billingham 1 1 Crawley 1 11 Dundee 3 — Ealing 20 1 Huddersfield 1 — Plymouth 6 — Port Talbot 14 4 Preston 1 1 Stoke-on-Trent 13 — Total 60 18 In cases of doubt about availability for work, the unemployment benefit office will ask the claimant to answer certain standard questions, under long-standing procedures for inquiring into availability for work. The
Best fits to Parliamentary Constituencies 1980 Standard Industrial Classification North West Region Lancashire Burnley* Pendle† Hyndburn‡ Rossendale and Darwen|| Agriculture, forestry and fishing 55 15 0 1 3 0 Energy/water supply industries 158 52 0 0 1 1 Extraction/manufacture: minerals/metals 287 70 11 5 3 18 Metal goods/vehicle industries, etc 966 233 23 13 28 29 Other manufacturing industries 1,757 478 41 37 49 81 Construction 955 230 7 15 7 21 Distribution, hotels/catering; repairs 5,993 1,636 74 57 82 50 Transport/communication 749 211 5 5 7 23 Banking, finance, insurance, leasing etc 1,566 285 14 14 8 11 Other services 6,014 1,765 81 49 70 85 Total vacancies at jobcentres 18,500 4,975 256 196 258 319 * Burnley and Pidiham jobcentres. † Nelson, Colne and Barnoldswick jobcentres. ‡ Accrington and Great Harwood jobcentres. || Haslington, Rawtenstall, Bacup and Darwen jobcentres.