GOVERNMENT'S AGENDA FOR JOBS

That this House is aware of the Department for Work and Pensions' decision, as part of the Government's reform and transformation agenda, to close large numbers of benefit delivery and contact centres throughout the UK under the guise of making better use of its estate by the creation of a smaller, leaner organisation able to deliver more ofits services via either the telephone and/or internet; believes such a strategy is unwise at a time of mass unemployment, with there being an even greater need for such services; and calls on the Government to desist from such a short-sighted and dangerous analysis, but instead to sit down with the Department's own skilled staff and devise meaningful programmes designed to get people back to work.