Meeting of the Parliament 08 February 2017
The closure of 23 jobcentres that the DWP is pursuing will affect deprived communities across Scotland, from Lanarkshire and Glasgow to the Western Isles and the Highlands. Labour members will support the Government motion, because we agree that the closures must be halted and because the UK and Scottish Governments must find a way forward.
Since December, Glasgow Labour has worked hand in hand with its SNP counterparts to fight the proposals. Eight jobcentres in Glasgow—half the number in the city—are up for closure, and the parties have been working together for the sake of people who are desperately looking to exercise their right to work and who need their jobcentre’s support to do that.
Now that the same challenge is extending across the country, I hope that all parties and all party leaders will join the call today for the DWP to halt the closures. Ruth Davidson must break her silence on the closure of the jobcentre in her Edinburgh constituency and on the massive impact that the closures will have on the Glasgow region, which she vacated, and on wider Scotland.
At a time when the Tories are cutting social security and hitting low-paid workers with sanctions, and when 139,000 people in Scotland are out of work, the proposals are reckless at best and utterly perverse at worst. It is completely counterproductive for the UK Government to close so many jobcentres.
The Tory spin that is used to justify the Glasgow cuts is shocking and masks the true harm that the closures will inflict on Scotland’s communities. The claimant count in the city is down by 44 per cent, as the Tories pointed out last month and have pointed out again today, but they choose to overlook the fact that the count across Scotland remains 14 per cent higher than it was before the financial crash. In fact, the number of economically inactive people who would still like a job stands at 190,000, which is 5 per cent higher than the figure before the crash.
The claimant count does not give the whole picture. As the Public and Commercial Services Union has pointed out, the effect of welfare reform is that too many people are falling between the cracks. Digitalisation, sanctions and mandatory reconsideration mean that fewer people are claiming the entitlements that they deserve.
It is astonishing that £2 billion in social security payments goes unclaimed in Scotland each year. Jobseekers allowance and employment and support allowance make up almost £600 million of that. Given the difficulty that people face in just making a claim, that number will keep increasing unless the closures are halted.
One Parent Families Scotland and Inclusion Scotland have stressed the fears that lone parents and disabled people have because of the closures. They fear increased travel times, which will risk lateness and the threat of sanctions; £4.50 bus tickets, which are unaffordable, or having to get taxis for longer journeys; and dealing with childcare arrangements. All that is added to the stress of meeting DWP demands in order to avoid sanctions.
PCS has highlighted the value of the local labour market knowledge that is set to be lost at Easterhouse jobcentre. In such a deprived area, staff knowledge of local employers means that employment support is provided that helps people to find local, accessible work rather than work that is several bus journeys away.