Speeches by McFadden.

“I have not given any instructions to not look here or there; the commission is free to do its work. Of course, another big reform was the new state pension, which started for those retiring after 2016. It was intended to deal with some of the gaps in the previous system; it was set at a higher level. That is the system…”

“We mustn’t fall under the illusion that a Committee is the answer.”

“Ms Baxter, I should have added that I went to Hampden Park a few months ago and announced 80 new youth hubs, a proportion of which are in Scotland, so we are setting up youth hubs in Scotland too.”

“One per cent of GDP is quite significant. Part of it that has probably grown more than others is health and disability benefits. Ms Baxter asked me a few moments ago about the standard unemployment rates. That has not been going up as a percentage of GDP; it has probably been going down. What has been going up is healt…”

“That I will always put work and opportunity at the heart of what I do. What I have tried to do since being appointed is to say that we need to change the question the system asks from simply assessing people for benefit entitlement to asking, “How can we help to change your life?” I think that is a more dynamic, fuller…”

“That is true, and some of those opportunities are for work experience; there are 300,000 more work experience opportunities. These are really important. By the way, work experience is taken very seriously in the Netherlands. One of the startling facts in the Milburn report was that a majority of those 1 million young p…”

“I don’t know about costed options before the review concludes, but I expect an interim report before the summer recess from Stephen and his panel, which they are writing—not me.”

“No. I think there has been some misinterpretation of this. I think Mr Darling and I discussed this when I first came before the Committee, a few weeks after being appointed. In the terms of reference, we were sending a signal to the reviewers not to come forward with a big, increasing cost package. There is nothing to …”

“First, I thank the commission for its really important work. There are lots of elements to this, but to go back in history again, the big fundamental reform dating from the latter days of the last Labour Government and the early years of the coalition was implemented as part of the Turner recommendations. We had auto-e…”

“It is a brilliant question. If I could perhaps use quite a Whitehall phrase, it is a challenge, and it has been a challenge for a long time. I always say that human beings do not live their lives according to our departmental boundaries; they really do not care much about what is the responsibility of DWP, the Departme…”

“We always have a positive and constructive dialogue with the Scottish Government.”

“Not all of them, no.”

“It will depend a bit on performance. It will speed up this year because we spent the first year standing it up. More people are now joining it more quickly, and I hope and expect that will continue. There is a really important concept here, which is that we want to bring to an end the era of being signed off and writte…”

“Yes, it has been devolved. When you devolve something, there are lots of really important strengths and advantages to that, but one of the things is that capacity will differ a little bit in local areas around the country, and in the first year it can take a while to stand up. I think the figure was that 14,000 or 16,0…”

“Correct.”

“There were a lot of numbers there. First, on the £400 billion, more than half of that is for the state pension. I do not know whether it is your party’s policy to cut the state pension; perhaps you can clarify if it is. But more than half—about 55%—of the bill that is quoted is the state pension. The health and disabil…”

“Do you want to know more about the forward path of spending?”

“We will report regularly to you and to Parliament as a whole. It is public spending. It is a commitment to us. The devolved nature of it is really important, because local labour markets differ.”

“When we agree that, it is important to recognise that it will probably mean performance is not the same in every area, because of the different labour markets.”

“I totally agree that if you can get people into work, it does not just save money; it changes life stories, and that is a really important thing to do. In numbers, the simplest picture of this was in Charlie Mayfield’s report “Keep Britain Working”, which used the figure of £1 million—if you can get a young person into…”