Answer from Hansard

Liz Kendall

As I said in response to an earlier question, we are overhauling the way that the Department for Work and Pensions supports employers. We think it is unacceptable that only one in six businesses has ever used a jobcentre to recruit. We are changing that, including by having a single account manager for businesses, so that they do not have to tell their story time and again. We are overhauling skills in this country, reforming the apprenticeship, and extending the number of sector-based work academy programmes and short skills programmes that businesses desperately want. I know that businesses are desperately keen to engage with us, because they want to recruit, and it is about time that the right hon. Lady’s party started listening to businesses.