To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how many payments for jobseeker’s allowance were terminated (a) as a result of employment and (b) for other reasons, broken down by reason in (i) each London borough and (ii) the UK in each of the last five years. (101752)

The information has been placed in the Library.

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what changes there have been to the criteria applied by his officials to test whether an applicant for Jobseeker’s Allowance has satisfied the requirement to seek work since 1997; and if he will make a statement. (110323)

Building on existing criteria, from 19 April 2004, the number of steps a jobseeker is expected to take to look for work increased from two to three per week. Also, after 13 weeks of entitlement to jobseeker’s allowance the amount of travelling time a jobseeker would be expected to undertake between their home and the proposed place of employment in order to find work increases from one hour to one hour and thirty minutes. Additionally, jobseekers who are still unemployed after 13 weeks are required to undertake a weekly, rather than fortnightly, job review for a period of 6 weeks.