Comment from David Mundell:
“The Work Programme is giving better value for money than previous programmes with every job start costing the taxpayer £2,000 compared with the £7,000 per job that Labour’s Flexible New Deal cost. It’s early days as this is only the initial phase of the first cycle of the new scheme, but the Work Programme is helping some of the hardest-to-help people – including the long-term unemployed, people who’ve been on sickness benefits for many years, and ex-offenders. Many of these people were simply ignored by previous schemes as Labour shuffled people about the system. This programme has faced up to the challenge that Labour ignored.
“It is no surprise that Russell Brown is only interested in playing politics, but he has some cheek to criticise the increase in welfare spending when most of that increase is because this government has increased pensions and benefits in-line with inflation. This year we have seen the biggest cash increase in the basic state pension ever - given that Russell Brown voted for Labour’s insulting 75p pension increase he really shouldn’t criticise that.”