§ Mr. McTaggartTo ask the Secretary of State for Scotland how many people have been interviewed in the Glasgow, Central travel-to-work area under the restart scheme; and how many have, following that interview, been refused benefit by the independent adjudication officer.
§ Mr. CopeI have been asked to reply.
Information on interviews is not available in the precise form requested. However, in the employment service areas which include the Glasgow travel-to-work area, Glasgow, Lanark, Ayrshire, Dumfries, Galloway, Renfrew, Dumbarton and Argyleshire, 172,659 people have been interviewed since 1 July 1986 when the national restart programme began. Any refusal of benefit subsequent to a restart interview follows not from the interview itself but from the decision of an independent adjudication officer operating under longstanding legal rules adopted by successive Governments.
The numbers of such decisions which follow a restart interview cannot be separately identified within the total number of decisions which follow from referrals to adjudication officers from unemployment benefit offices.