Robert Jenrick says 'tough love' needed to get people back to work, with over 9 million without a job
by Kit Heren · LBCExclusive
By Kit Heren
Robert Jenrick has said that the government needs to use "tough love" to get people back into work, as the number of people without a job soars.
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The Conservative leadership hopeful told LBC's Tonight with Andrew Marr that "too many people" are out of work due to mental health problems.
While noting that many people have "complex issues" that have to be dealt with sensitively, Mr Jenrick said that many people currently on sickness benefits because of mental health issues "would be leading happier and more successful lives if we can get them into the workplace".
Some 9.3 million people working age people were 'economically inactive' in the period from June to August this year, according to a parliamentary report. The number has increased markedly since the pandemic.
Mr Jenrick said: "We've got to do for mental health what we did for the sick note culture that existed in the 2010s which Ian Duncan Smith and others took on, which made work pay and encouraged people back into the workplace.
"I think today, of course, it's important as a country that we have learnt more about mental health, we're more fluent and comfortable talking about it, and that's generally a positive thing, but we do now see too many people out of work because of it."
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He added: "I want us to work carefully through those challenges in a sensitive manner, of course, because these are complex issues, but we can't leave hundreds of thousands of people out of work because of mental health".
Mr Jenrick is in the last two of the Conservative leadership race with Kemi Badenoch. Both are on the right of the party, but Mr Jenrick, a former immigration minister, has put a particular focus on reducing arrivals into the country.
He told Andrew: "We've got to end mass migration, and we've got to ensure that British businesses are more focused on hiring British workers, training them up, skilling them up, paying them properly, investing in their futures, than simply reaching for the easy lever of foreign labour that has not made this country more prosperous in recent years."
Mr Jenrick said that "we've lived through an age which has been characterised by exceptionally high levels of net migration and low levels of economic growth and productivity growth".
He said that he wanted to create "a fundamentally different economic model for our country" that would see "British businesses investing more in British workers, and at times, paying them more money for it".
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Mr Jenrick said that the idea of hiring foreign workers for low-paid jobs was actually a "false economy" because on average these people would actually be a net drain on the public finances over their lifetimes.
"I want to see a different model, where we're investing in British workers in the first instance," he said.
The new Conservative leader will be announced on November 2, after a vote by the party's members.
Mr Jenrick also told Andrew that he wanted to have a debate with Ms Badenoch in the next two weeks. He said they were "neck and neck" in the race.
The former minister, who served under four Prime Ministers, said that he had been "painfully honest" about his party's mistakes over its 14 years in power, but refused to apologise.
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He also reiterated his calls for the NHS' chief executive Amanda Pritchard to quit, citing declining productivity in the health service.
Mr Jenrick said under his leadership, the Conservative party would be reunited after years of infighting.
But he declined to back a call by former PM and Foreign Secretary David Cameron for the UK to sanction members of the Israeli government.
"What I think we have to be urging for is peace in the region," he said instead. "We want to see an end to this conflict for the benefit of the people of Israel, as for those living in Gaza and the West Bank, and indeed in Lebanon as well."