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The Minister for Employment (Priti Patel)
I congratulate the hon. Member for Islwyn (Chris Evans) on securing the debate and I pay tribute to many of his remarks. He rightly stated that Jobcentre Plus is important and nothing to do with left or right on the political spectrum. The debate is about people; it should not be about structures or institutions, although I will come on to speak about the jobcentres and various programmes and partnerships.
Importantly, the debate is about many of the bigger societal issues to do with unemployment and about the challenges that we face as a society in all our communities, given what unemployment and the spiral of worklessness mean for individuals and families. That was the focus of our welfare reforms in the previous Parliament under my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, as it will be of this Government’s agenda. We are on the side of working families and individuals, and we aspire to achieve full employment and, rightly, to do more to support those individuals who are furthest away from the labour market. Those are the individuals on whom we must concentrate Government resources, to help and train them and to secure real opportunities for them.
I thank everyone who has contributed to this important debate, which has covered a range of significant employment issues, including support to help people in work. In my view, work helps to transform people’s lives, which is about the wider world consisting of individuals as well as of society.
Jobcentre Plus, however, is the core theme of today’s debate. Labour Members will not be surprised that I will categorically disagree with claims that Jobcentre Plus is not fit for purpose. Like the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green), I pay tribute to everyone who works in our jobcentres and in Jobcentre Plus. Every day up and down the country our advisers work with individuals, local authorities and local organisations in the community to support and help people not only to come off benefits in the long term, but—importantly—to get access to the labour market. We want to help them on the journey to secure long-term employment.
Every day our work coaches conduct nearly 100,000 interviews across a network of more than 7,000 jobcentres. They work closely with local employers—as is right and proper—which I have seen for myself in my constituency. If I remember rightly, back in 2010 in Witham, I too was almost critical, because my perception was that jobcentres did not have enough of a locus in the local employment market and were not making enough connections with local employers. That has now changed, and I have seen that for myself in the jobcentres I have visited. I can speak with some conviction about the Witham jobcentre, which now works with local employers.
Importantly, our jobcentres and work coaches have a clear understanding of the local labour market. They know where the skills shortages are and who the training providers in their community are. They provide the guiding role to support claimants who come to them in search of local employment opportunities. Therefore, I take issue with the overall assertion that Jobcentre Plus is not fit for purpose. It is doing a good job and we should pause for a minute and recognise that we now have one of the highest employment rates in the developed world and the second lowest unemployment in the European Union. That has been achieved through our network of jobcentres, obviously, but also through rightly focusing on support and assistance to people who need that to access the labour market. That has been achieved, yes, through the wider economic reforms of the Government, but also by creating the right economic conditions for businesses to grow and thrive. It is important for sustainable businesses to employ people, to sustain employment and to invest in people, jobs and economic growth. Jobcentre Plus also has a vital role in all our local communities.
Hannah Bardell
I am sure that everyone in the Chamber and across the political divide pays tribute to the work of people in the jobcentres. However, we are discussing their expertise and increasing their powers, as the Minister rightly said. What is her response to my example of twice the number of people in the Work programme being sanctioned as are actually getting work through it? Surely that statistic suggests that such programmes are not working.
Priti Patel
We touched on this during debate on the Scotland Bill last week and I told the hon. Lady that if she wants to bring me the evidence of such cases, I will look into them myself. I have also said that to her party colleagues—bring me the cases and I will intervene personally, look into them in more detail and see what can be done. I want to come on to the Work programme as well.
Priti Patel
It is important. We want to ensure that we are doing the right thing for individuals and supporting them, because the issue is not only one of institutions, processes and structures, although they are there for a reason.
I will highlight a couple of points about Jobcentre Plus. There has been some criticism of it, but the National Audit Office reported that it responded well to the challenge of the recession from 2008 onwards and the recovery. The OECD stated:
“The UK experience suggests that merging the public employment service and benefit agency has improved employment outcomes”.
Furthermore, Jobcentre Plus has added £5.5 billion to UK GDP since its introduction. In the previous Parliament, the Work and Pensions Committee commented that Jobcentre Plus has performed “effectively” and “is cost-effective”. Last year, Jobcentre Plus achieved or exceeded every one of its labour market performance measures. That is important.
Jobcentre Plus is a high-volume national organisation, and so not every experience will be perfect. That is a fact of life with such an organisation—not everything will be right. We monitor performance and have service standards, but more can always be done to improve quality and professionalism. We are conscious of how we can improve services, and improvements are based on feedback that we receive. I experience that personally when I visit jobcentres.
I turn now to the issue of partnership. The Government cannot achieve our objectives on employment on our own. We can do so only by working in partnership with others in the private and voluntary sectors, at national, regional and local levels. I have touched briefly on my own experiences going out and about to jobcentres, and I have seen that partnership work in action. I know about the partnership work taking place in the constituency of the hon. Member for Islwyn—we see it in case studies and he will be fully aware of it—and I pay tribute to all the community-based and local organisations in his constituency. One is Groundwork’s Routes 2 Life, which provides work experience and skills training for over-50s—again, this issue does not just affect young people but runs across the age range. It is relevant to the fuller working lives agenda, as well as how we can support those young people who may face challenges when trying to get a foot in the labour market because they do not have the right work experience or CV. Borough councils are involved as well. Across Wales, there are plenty of great examples of partnership, and they should be developed further.
Importantly—this is always a challenge for central Government in my view—this is a question of integration: how we join up working, and how that joined-up approach delivers results. We need the right outcomes, not just for the structures and systems but for individuals. I am also clear that I want more local authorities, in particular, to work more closely with voluntary sector, charity and other community and labour market partners.
On a national level, there is much more integration. Following the general election, my party has committed to achieving full employment, with more focus on young people getting the support they need. We have also made a commitment to help more women get work and to support more individuals with disabilities getting into work. We can do that only by working across Government. That is right and proper, and we will use every lever at the disposal of central Government to integrate our services and support everyone across the age range, as well as young people and people with disability or health issues.
On devolution, there is, for example, the Manchester devolution deal for the combined authority. Projects in central London are working with local authorities, and—together with Glasgow City Council—we will launch a programme to support employment and support allowance claimants in finding and remaining in employment. That is the right way forward. We should devolve to our communities, and the Government support that agenda.
I am pleased to say that there is greater partnership integration with the Work programme, including getting people access to apprenticeship opportunities, and there is more to do on that. We want a more constructive joint-working approach to ensure that, for example, claimants in Wales are able to access the full range of support that they need. That includes projects funded through the European social fund, which are targeted at particular disadvantaged communities; naturally, we want to do more to support them.
The Work programme aims to support claimants at risk of long-term unemployment. It has been successful and, to date, has supported over 400,000 long-term unemployed people in getting back into work. As a result, we have been able to get more people back into work and support people through very challenging circumstances.
Kate Green
The Work programme has been improving after a shaky start, but it is still not performing well for disabled people. Will the Minister tell us how she intends to improve performance for disabled people and answer my question about the role of the Work Choice programme in that?
Priti Patel
Absolutely. I will. My point is that the Work programme has been successful—it has been one of the most successful employment programmes in the United Kingdom’s history. At the end of the day, that should be welcomed and supported by all of us.
The Government are clear that we want to support more individuals with disability into work. A lot of work is being done with Work programme contractors and providers to concentrate more resources and investment in that area. If I may just share an anecdote, last week I sat down with Work programme providers to look at what has been working and some of the successes and strengths of the Work programme, and how we can address some of the real challenges for individuals with disabilities. That is the right thing to do, and we should all be focusing on that. We should also look at what support and interventions we can put in place not just for individuals with disability but for other individuals who are further away from the labour market—for example, those with health conditions.
Richard Graham
Am I right in thinking that there will at some point, probably before the end of the year, be a review of some of the criteria for selection for contractors for the Work programme? I believe that the current contracts come to an end at the beginning of 2017, so there is an opportunity for all Members—and for Select Committees, all-party groups, and so on—to chip in ideas for the Government to consider over the next few months.
Priti Patel
My hon. Friend is right. We can never stand still on this issue and it is important that we learn the lessons as we go forward. On that basis, I would welcome Members’ views.
To conclude, Mr Williams—
