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Jobcentre Plus (Scotland)

13. Ann McKechin (Glasgow, Maryhill) (Lab): If he will make a statement on the operation of Jobcentre Plus in Scotland. [167689]

The Minister for Work (Jane Kennedy): Every working day, the staff of Jobcentre Plus in Scotland receive around 1,400 vacancies, conduct 3,000 work-
 
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focused interviews, help nearly 700 people into jobs, and pay around £10 million in working age benefits. The new deal alone has helped more than 100,000 people into work in Scotland. My compliments go to the staff of Jobcentre Plus for their success.

Ann McKechin : My right hon. Friend will be aware that a new employers' forum has been established in Glasgow to tackle the high level of economic inactivity. May I urge her to meet representatives of it as soon as possible to support its work?

Will my right hon. Friend explain how the roll-out of Jobcentre Plus in Glasgow will benefit the large number of economically inactive people—now estimated to be more than 94,000—to ensure that they can benefit and get into work?

Jane Kennedy: I will of course take up my hon. Friend's invitation to Scotland to meet the employers' forum. I know that the former Minister for Work, my hon. Friend the Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Mr. Browne), had a date for that in his diary, and as my hon. Friend has personally extended the invitation to me, I shall take it up. I look forward to it.

Through a combination of economic stability and radical labour market reforms, more than 1.75 million more people are now in work than in 1997, and unemployment is at its lowest for nearly 30 years. We are not complacent, however, because there is a lot more to do. That is why the roll-out of Jobcentre Plus is so important. The new services that are being delivered through the integrated offices of Jobcentre Plus are making a radical difference to the experience of people who are looking for work. I am very impressed by the enthusiasm that is being demonstrated by the staff in the new role that they are embarking on in assisting people to find work through the personal adviser system. It is a massive investment—

Mr. Speaker: Order. I will try another Member.

Mr. Ian Davidson (Glasgow, Pollok) (Lab/Co-op): I welcome the Minister to her new remit. Can she confirm that at the very top of her list of responsibilities to be pursued urgently is the creation of a new job centre for Pollok, which is one of the few constituencies that does not have one? Given that it was about to be named the Des Browne memorial job centre, does she agree that if the name were changed, she should visit the site when she goes to Glasgow?

Jane Kennedy: I apologise, Mr. Speaker, for getting carried away with the good news that is at the core of my new brief.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his welcome. I am happy to meet him to talk about his suggestions for the location of a new Jobcentre Plus and, if possible, to visit him in his constituency.

Disability Discrimination (Access to Services)

14. Mr. John Lyons (Strathkelvin and Bearsden) (Lab): What assessment he has made of the effect that
 
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changes to the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 in October will have on disabled people's access to services. [167690]

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Maria Eagle): 1 October is DDA day for service providers. The new duties will require them to tackle physical barriers to their services. Our research shows that nearly half the disabled people who experienced difficulty in accessing services reported entry to premises as the main problem. The new duties will enable around 10 million disabled customers to benefit from physical adjustments, where those are reasonable. Raising awareness of the barriers faced by disabled people will lead to greater improvements over time as society in general gets better at accommodating their needs.

Mr. Lyons : I thank my hon. Friend for that response. Does she accept, however, that greater clarity is still needed on access to buildings? The Times recently ran a report saying that museums, theatres and heritage buildings will be forced to close because of the October changes. Will my hon. Friend help to fight the scaremongering?

Maria Eagle: I hope that it was not scaremongering, but merely ignorance, which of course one would not expect from The Times. I recommend that people look instead at the access supplement in Disability Now, which was written by the Disability Rights Commission, and in which they can find good information. We are mailing 1 million small businesses to make them aware of their obligations and to give them information about where they can get good-quality free advice about what they need to do to meet their obligations.

Mr. Patrick McLoughlin (West Derbyshire) (Con): Can the Minister confirm that no Government Department will use this Act as an excuse to close premises that are open to the public at the moment?

Maria Eagle: The hon. Gentleman should be aware that it is an important part of the public sector's commitment to service to ensure that it has the very best possible standards of access. It is important that we should lead by example. However, the law does not require buildings to close; it requires access to services. If such access is impossible in a particular building, arrangements should be made to make those services accessible in a different way. I want to make it perfectly clear that the law does not require anyone to close a building because it is inaccessible.

Jim Dobbin (Heywood and Middleton) (Lab/Co-op): Will the proposed changes to the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 force local education authorities to improve access to schools throughout England and Wales for physically disabled children?

Maria Eagle: My hon. Friend is right to identify that issue as one of great importance. Of course, the DDA does now apply to schools all the way from nursery schools to higher education, through the provisions of the Special Educational Needs and Disability Act 2001. My ministerial colleagues in the Department for
 
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Education and Skills are overseeing a programme, funded by extra resources, to ensure that every local education authority area has schools that are accessible to children with physical disabilities, so that when their parents want them to, they can get their education in mainstream schools.

Pension Credit

15. Mr. Eric Illsley (Barnsley, Central) (Lab): If he will make a statement on the take-up of pension credit. [167691]

The Minister for Pensions (Malcolm Wicks): As we reported earlier, the take-up of pension credit is going well, with 2.9 million individuals now receiving it. This includes some 4,460 pensioner households in my hon. Friend's constituency.

Mr. Illsley : I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that response. I very much welcome the pension credit and the take-up in my constituency. However, both he and I know that that take-up could be improved. Two of the issues that have been raised with me in meetings with pensioner organisations in my constituency are the reluctance to undergo means-testing and the idea that many pensioners who have not saved for their retirement are being rewarded as well as those who have. Does my hon. Friend have any proposals to try to overcome this resentment of means-testing?

Malcolm Wicks: That means that we need to redouble our efforts at communicating, and to point out the savings element involved. We know from our customer satisfaction surveys that the ability to apply over the telephone, for example, is going down very well with customers. This comes back to what I said earlier. Sadly, there are some in the House who say that the pension credit is too complex and confusing—the message being: "Don't claim it"—and those of us who want to tackle pensioner poverty, as we are doing, have to go out there and be positive in every constituency, including Northavon, and to tell people that this is a decent benefit for people who deserve the money.

Child Support Agency

16. Bob Russell (Colchester) (LD): How many fathers have been prosecuted for providing false information to the Child Support Agency in respect of their income in each of the past five years for which figures are available. [167692]

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Mr. Chris Pond): These offences were introduced in 2001, and the first prosecutions were brought in 2002. Since then, 303 prosecutions have led to 301 convictions; 287 of these were for providing false information.

Bob Russell : I am grateful to the Minister for that answer, but does he not agree that that seems to be a relatively small number, bearing in mind the hundreds of thousands of cases that the Child Support Agency deals with? In cases in which the father—usually the father—is self-employed, his declaration of income
 
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frequently bears no resemblance to his standard of living. Does the Minister agree that there is a need for greater determination by the agency, working with the Inland Revenue, to bring to book those fathers who are cheating the system and cheating genuine law-abiding taxpayers?

Mr. Pond: May I add that those same non-resident parents are also cheating their children, which is why we must treat this matter very seriously? That is why new powers are now available for the CSA to operate in the same way as the Inland Revenue in investigating such circumstances as the hon. Gentleman describes. Although the number of prosecutions and convictions is relatively small, their main purpose is to ensure that the payments get to the parent with care and to their
 
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children. That is our main objective, and if the prosecutions act as an incentive for non-resident parents to pay that money, we will have achieved it.

Mr. Peter Pike (Burnley) (Lab): Does my hon. Friend accept that that category of self-employed father really makes operation of the system quite chaotic? Those fathers seem to make a rude gesture to the CSA, the mother of their children, their children and the legal system. We must ensure that that is ended, because it is not acceptable.

Mr. Pond: I agree with my hon. Friend, and those non-resident parents who think that they are making a rude gesture to the agency, the parents with care and, indeed, their own children will soon find that, as those powers are increasingly used, there will be not a rude gesture coming in the other direction, but something much more effective.

 
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