Travel To Interview Scheme

EDM number 1175 in 1995-96, proposed by Brian H Donohoe on 16/07/1996.

That this House notes with concern the growing and detrimental impact of the decision of the Employment Service to lengthen the qualifying period for the unemployed to claim assistance under the travel-to-interview scheme from four to 13 weeks; notes that in the 1995-96 financial year the scheme enabled unemployed people to attend 46,810 job interviews at a cost of ú1.7 million pounds to the Employment Service; recognises that lengthening the qualifying period for the scheme from four to 13 weeks will prevent some 26 per cent. of those who were able to previously get assistance from the scheme from doing so under the new regulations, saving the Employment Service roughly ú400,000 in the current year; and calls on the Employment Service and the Secretary of State for Education and Employment to reverse the Government's penny-pinching attitude to the scheme in order to help the unemployed in their efforts to obtain employment.

This motion has been signed by a total of 46 MPs.