BBC QT’s Fiona Bruce makes Lisa Nandy squirm as she refuses to reply query | Politics | News | EUROtoday

Labour minister Lisa Nandy flapped tonight as she appeared to refuse to have the ability to reply a easy query from the viewers about how her get together would sort out the issue of getting individuals again into work.

The MP appeared alongside Jacob Rees-Mogg, Mariella Frostrup, Rory Stewart and Anand Menon with the episode of the present from London introduced by Fiona Bruce.

An viewers member requested “is the carrot approach of supporting people into work better than the stick of cutting benefits?”, and Ms Bruce provided the query to Ms Nandy mentioning that the UK is the “only major economy where the employment rate has fallen”.

The BBC presenter added that there had been plenty of bulletins in regards to the “carrot” this week for the unemployed in relation to entry to psychological well being and enhancements to job centres, however Ms Bruce stated: “Do you think there needs to be a stick?”

Ms Nandy, the MP for Wigan, stated: “What we announced this week is that you’ve got nearly a million young people who are out of work. There not in work, there not in education, they’re not in training, which we think is a national scandal, I don’t think anyone can be happy with that situation.

“And you’ve got additionally bought round 2.8 million individuals who aren’t in work as a result of they’re too sick to work. Now one of many ways in which you sort out that’s what we have introduced within the funds this week which is reform and funding into the nationwide well being service.”

Ms Nandy continued talking about a “million younger individuals who would kill for alternatives to work”, but Ms Bruce interjected pointing out “it is not simply younger individuals Lisa, is it, and also you promise, or the Government has promised, an overhaul of the incapacity advantages system”.

Ms Nandy claimed this was not what was “introduced this week” and said it was about reforming the job centres, but again Ms Bruce had to point out Liz Kendall, the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, had said it was about an “overhaul” and that Labour had pledged to cut “£3billion from the welfare invoice”. She asked Ms Nandy once more: “How are you going to do this?”

Ms Nandy appeared to smile and shake her head as Ms Bruce was talking and answered rather confusingly: “I’ll reply your query, however I do actually need to tackle the query.”

Ms Bruce replied: “The query is about carrot and stick, I’m asking what’s the stick?”

Flustered, Ms Nandy said: “I’m making an attempt to get to it, as a result of individuals, I really feel the frustration on a regular basis. People do not need to know whose fault it was, they need to understand how we’re going to repair it.”

Ms Nandy, who is the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, then talked about working with Channel 4 and the Premier League, before she seemed to finally get to the point and said: “If individuals do not take up these alternatives, we’ve additionally stated that we’ll not pay advantages to these individuals.”

A frustrated Ms Bruce pointed out “that occurs already” in that when people don’t accept jobs they can “be sanctioned”, and asked Ms Nandy again what Labour were doing “that is completely different?”.