Employment Service In North East Derbyshire

EDM number 1551 in 1997-98, proposed by Harry Barnes on 14/07/1998.

That this House strongly opposes the Employment Service's proposed closures of the job centres in Dronfield and Eckington in the North East Derbyshire constituency on the grounds that both unemployed and employed residents of Dronfield, the largest town in North East Derbyshire, as well as in Eckington and adjoining Killamarsh parishes which have a similar total population size, deserves an adequate range of employment and benefits services and that the proposed alternative facilities would impose a large and unfair proportionate cost in bus fares on job seekers who would have to travel longer distances and who can least afford it; believes that the closure of these job centres, the only two closures in the relevant Employment Services region, would undermine regeneration initiatives in the area; notes, in particular, that the Dronfield Employment Centre is under immediate threat of closure and that the lease on the building used by that centre can be extended; and urges the Employment Service to extend the lease whilst it conducts a meaningful consultation exercise with the job centre users and others into the impact of the proposed closures and to investigate potential alternative accommodation for the centres if this is felt to be necessary.

This motion has been signed by a total of 16 MPs.