The hon. Gentleman’s central argument is that the proposed scheme is voluntary, but my problem, in addition to all the comments made by my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh South (Ian Murray), is that the Government
have singularly failed to give any guarantee that a prospective employee in receipt of JSA who does not wish to take up such employment will not be penalised for not wishing to take a job without basic fundamental rights. That is, in fairness, the point that the right hon. Member for Hazel Grove (Andrew Stunell) has made: we have received no guarantees whatsoever. How can the hon. Member for Burnley (Gordon Birtwistle) say that this is voluntarily, if people could face such sanctions?