International Women’s Day
Baroness Brinton Excerpts(8 months ago)
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Baroness Brinton (LD)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor of Stevenage, with the example of her council and its excellent practice for abuse victims. It sounds an interesting project. I am a vice-president of the LGA, and I hope that that good practice will be disseminated throughout local government.
This year’s themes are investing in women and inspiring inclusion. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Vere, for her introductory speech, but it seems to me that the noble Baroness, Lady Casey—I welcome her and her wonderful maiden speech—embodies those themes, particularly from her work as the first Victims’ Commissioner. I thank her for reading the names of the women who were murdered last year. It is a tough ask, but she is also right to say that men should not be bystanders; we need more men to speak out. The noble Baroness, Lady Armstrong, spoke of the “tough love” of the noble Baroness, Lady Casey. Sometimes we in the Lords need to hear that tough love, and I think we will find her contribution very welcome.
My noble friend Lady Northover—I am pleased to see that she is still in her place—reminded us that much of caring in our society is still done by women. In coalition, we introduced equal parental leave, but it has not worked, and I wonder why. Much of this debate has focused on a combination of data, lived experience and examples, some of which can be defined by organisations, but a lot of it is about the culture of our society.
I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Addington, who expanded on that when he talked about using sport as a mechanism to encourage support for some of the harder-to-reach young girls in our society. I must say, my daughter gave up rugby at 10; once it moved past touch-tackle, “No, thank you”.
The noble Baroness, Lady Barker, spoke powerfully about the pressure on LGBT communities and the challenge faced by the community in Uganda. She was fairly delicate in her description of the new laws in Uganda. You can now be sentenced to death for “extreme homosexuality”, under a law passed last year. That is extraordinary. Are we making representations to the Ugandan Government to reconsider this?
My noble friend Lord Oates spoke movingly about his mother and her passion for the eradication of polio, perhaps helped by her purple hair. It is evident to me and our Benches that my noble friend has inherited from her his passion for the solution of clean water to reduce tropical diseases, including endemic parasites, which are so manageable with that investment.
The noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, gave us some wonderful examples of those in the past who stood for women’s suffrage and women, past and present, in the trade union movement. The noble Baroness, Lady O’Grady, reminded us of the importance of women in the miners’ strike, holding their communities together as well as protesting.
The noble Baroness, Lady Moyo, reminded us that the number of FTSE 100 companies with women directors is still low, but finally beginning to rise. These Benches were pleased to ask those companies to note that record in their annual reports and accounts and therefore be held to account. She and the noble Baroness, Lady Sater, also talked about exclusion from financial products. They are right; remedying that is absolutely fundamental. That was built on by the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Brixton, when he reminded us of the poverty of the pensions gap, principally because of women’s roles in our society as carers. Here we come back to culture and how we can change things.
I move on to international matters. Two or three noble Lords spoke about women in war. I am minded to remember my friend Kira Rudyk, who, as a senior MP in the Ukrainian Parliament, has spent the time since Russia invaded Ukraine travelling the world to talk about what is happening, as many other women MPs have. Kira was bombed out of her house just before Christmas. On Twitter, she just said that it was difficult—“I am hurt a bit but it’s not too bad”. I saw her about a week later; it transpired that she had 12 deep cuts from glass right the way down her back. She none the less continued with her international schedule because, for her, the war is the most important thing. She said to me, “Many more have died. I was lucky with those minor wounds”.
The noble Baroness, Lady Anderson, movingly read out the names of journalists and photographers who have died this last year. It is shocking to hear about stoning to death. That punishment for women has been going on for millennia. It should not be happening today.
The noble Baroness, Lady Gale, outlined the importance of women modelling behaviour. She mentioned in particular the role of commissioners and others. That is vital because, until we have understood that that role is for us, it is sometimes hard to believe that it is possible.
The noble Baroness, Lady Amos, illustrated the health gap between men and women and the fact that women are unrepresented not just in clinical trials but in many other elements of the healthcare sector. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Southwark spoke of the need for a new deal for carers. He is absolutely right. What plans are there to ensure that carers get the support they need? I link that back to the point from the noble Lord, Lord Davies, about recognising carers in the pensions they get. They may get some credit when they are unable to work, but they need more than that.
I want to end on girls and women in STEM, building on the excellent speech made by the noble Viscount, Lord Stansgate. I particularly want to thank Women into Science and Engineering—WISE—for its briefing and support. Just before I start on where we are now, I will highlight just a few of the trailblazers of the past. Ada Lovelace is known for being the daughter of Lord Byron, but her extraordinary abilities in mathematics meant that she was the first person to see that Charles Babbage’s analytical engine had applications way beyond calculation.
In 1890, Philippa Fawcett, the daughter of Millicent Fawcett and niece of Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, was the first woman ever to obtain the top score in the Cambridge mathematical Tripos, but, because she was a woman, she was not granted the title of Senior Wrangler. Indeed, her results were not read out at the same time, but she was described as “Above the Senior Wrangler”. Jocelyn Bell Burnell, an outstanding astrophysicist, discovered the Crab Nebula, and Professor Dorothy Hodgkin is still the only woman from the UK to win a Nobel Prize in the sciences. That was in 1964. That is not a problem for the Nobel Prize committee; it speaks volumes to what is happening in science and engineering in our country today.
I knew Dr Anna Bidder, who founded Lucy Cavendish College, well. She was an outstanding zoologist. As with her predecessors, 100 years ago, Cambridge University refused to award her either her undergraduate degree or her PhD. She taught at Newnham College and the university’s zoology department all her working life. When Lucy Cavendish gained its royal charter in 1997, Anna, aged 94, said that this was a centenary of refusing to grant women degrees and 50 years since it decided to finally grant them—but it did not backdate them. She was finally awarded an honorary fellowship by the university that year. On the same day, 70 years late, she finally got her undergraduate and her PhD degree.
So, we follow on the shoulders of these important women. Professor Dame Athene Donald, who is the master of Churchill College, has written an excellent book on the current barriers called Not Just for the Boys: Why We Need More Women in Science. She talked about one of the Nobel Prize winners in Germany whose boss, when she told him she had just won a Nobel Prize, said, “Oh, we must have a party at the institute. I’m too busy to go and get the champagne. Would you do that?”
I raise this because statistics still show us that, despite the improvement in qualifications at school and university in STEM, that is not yet true for physics and the “really hard” sciences. At schools, A-level results at STEM are now at 40%, but physics and maths are still much lower. Even at primary school, Dame Athene Donald talks about gendering happening early on. When my daughter was at my local primary school, Cambridge University sent out maths students to work with the girls at junior level, and many of them were then inspired and loved maths when they got to secondary school.
This government have introduced T-levels. I ask the Minister: how are we going to encourage girls to do some of the more technical T-levels? While it is 50:50, the vast majority of courses that the girls do are to do with childcare.
We must not stereotype. We often do, unfortunately. Athene Donald took issue with Katharine Birbalsingh, who said in 2022:
“Girls do not choose physics A-level because they dislike ‘hard maths’”.
Athene Donald said that it is not a case of campaigning for more girls to do physics; it is a case of making sure that they are not discouraged by remarks such as this, because the girls of today are our scientists and engineers of tomorrow, and our economy needs them.
Budget Statement
Baroness Brinton Excerpts(1 year, 7 months ago)
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Baroness Brinton (LD) [V]
My Lords, I declare my interest as a vice-president of the Local Government Association and a vice-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Adult Social Care. It is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Eatwell, and I also look forward to hearing the maiden speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Moyo.
The Chancellor says the OBR projection is now that Britain will avoid a “technical recession”, but ONS data shows that the UK is the only major economy in the G7 that is still smaller than it was pre pandemic. The OBR has confirmed that, after yesterday’s Budget, living standards will fall faster than any time since the 1950s, and it is evident that living standards in 2028 will be worse than in pre-pandemic years. This Conservative Government have made the British people poorer.
So, frankly, it was embarrassing yesterday to see the Conservative Government celebrate an economy that has shrunk in size on their watch and is lagging way behind our international competitors. The cost of living crisis is hitting millions of Britain’s families and pensioners, but this Budget has failed them miserably. People are desperate for real help, especially a cut in their energy bills, but all the Chancellor could offer was empty words and more unfair tax hikes—unless you are in the top 1%.
The abolition of the lifetime pension tax allowance may help a number of medical consultants, but the real problem here is that the Conservative Government have failed to act on this for years, and by now the NHS has lost far too many senior staff as a result. While it is welcome that this may encourage NHS consultants to work longer, it does nothing for our heroic nurses and other healthcare staff on low pay, who have been working to exhaustion in crumbling hospitals. That many nurses have had to access food banks should be shameful to this Government.
The Chancellor announced the four pillars of his industrial strategy—economy, enterprise, employment and education—but, within 24 hours, commentators and many people and organisations are raising serious concerns about the proposals. Why, yet again, is there no impact assessment for the Budget, as required under the Equality Act 2010? It is particularly egregious because the Government rightly ask for impact assessments in many other areas that they fund—for example, international development or even their own departments—but will not do it for their own Budget proposals. We note that the Chancellor has spent two-thirds of the windfall from the economic dip not being quite as bad as had been feared on a series of headlines, but he has failed to reduce the cost of living crisis that is hitting millions of Britain’s families and pensioners. This is why we need an impact assessment.
The Chancellor announced a harsher regime on benefits that will affect some of the most vulnerable in our society: those too unwell to work but not classified as disabled; black and ethnic-minority people; young people not in education, employment or training—the NEETs—who are often from a low socioeconomic background; and those in work but on very low pay, who are really struggling at the moment.
From these Benches, we wanted to see household energy bills cut by £500 by taking the energy price guarantee down from £2,500 to below £2,000. We wanted to extend energy support for businesses, especially local businesses, including farmers and rural communities, to keep food prices from rising and to help shops and pubs on our high streets to stay open. We also wanted to put in place a proper windfall tax so that oil and gas giants pay their fair share.
This is because the OBR says we are only half way through this period of severe cost and inflation increases and resulting pressures on the economy. It has confirmed that living standards will fall by 6% over the next two years, and we know from the last year that vulnerable communities will be worst affected. For example, Black Voice notes that 40% of black people have no access to a car, compared with 17% of white people.
Data also shows that bus and rail costs have risen disproportionately compared with fuel duty and vehicle fuel costs over the last five years. We know that bus users in rural areas are paying much higher prices, just as they watch their local bus services disappear because councils cannot afford to support them. Once again, the most vulnerable are affected.
We on these Benches believe that R&D tax credits for business are effective. However, yesterday’s announcement about the 40% intensity threshold for innovation, at a time when all types of businesses are focusing on surviving and coming out of this economic downturn, raises concern. High tech and innovation are vital for business, as I know better than most, but all businesses need to grow.
Four decades ago, I managed the new Cambridge research fund, which was the first UK seed corn investment fund for high-tech companies coming out of universities. In those early days, we learned one key fact: tech businesses are not understood well by mainstream banks and their investors. The lead time to market, and profit, is often slower than for less innovative businesses and far too many do not make it. Those elements still hold true. Can the Minister say how long the Government believe it will take before UK business sees a rate of return on these new, highly strategic R&D tax credits and why they made the decision not to fund those businesses just outside that innovation threshold, because now is also a crucial time for them to invest?
We also know that many businesses across the country are really struggling with their energy costs. Some have already had to close because their costs have gone up by such a large amount. This includes social care providers; as an aside, why was there absolutely no mention of social care in the Budget yesterday? The Government have delayed the reforms they proposed last year. They are vital but there was no news.
Methodist Homes, which has 88 care homes and 69 retirement living schemes, has found that its energy costs have risen from £5 million to £18.6 million in less than two years. Yet the support it received from the Government has reduced this burden only by less than £1 million. Social care settings were not included in the energy and trade-intensive industry support scheme, despite the fact that they run many medical appliances and cannot simply turn the thermostat down. Methodist Homes says:
“We were hoping for support in this Budget and are disappointed that our sector has been overlooked. The scale of the impact of the energy bill hikes should not be underestimated: without significant support on energy bills to the sector, we believe there is a risk of market failure and subsequent reduced provision for older and vulnerable people, with a devastating knock-on effect on peoples’ lives and patient flow in the NHS.”
What advice would the Treasury give to the many social care providers today, and what help can they receive to prevent this possible market failure and the crisis for our elderly in having nowhere to go that closures would create?
The Government’s priority of getting people back into work to really start the economy going again seems logical, at face value, but the details of how this will work are key. With 6.7 million people economically inactive, the Chancellor proposes a number of remedies.
On the childcare and nursery announcement about providing £4 billion to fund an extra 30 hours a week free for one and two year-olds, the Chancellor is also going to relax the ratio of staff to children in nurseries to help address staffing issues. In coalition, the Liberal Democrats pushed the Conservatives to start the investment for three to four year-olds, but we wanted it to go further and cover one to two year-olds too; the Conservatives disagreed. Let us be clear that, despite the Government claiming today the entire credit for the current system, the push inside the coalition for this was from Jo Swinson MP and we always said that it needed to be expanded. Our 2019 manifesto set this out and was derided at the time by the current Government.
There are holes in yesterday’s announcement regarding the proper funding of a scheme that is free to parents and does not penalise nurseries. First, the Government announced some funding, but it is not the full funding that is necessary. Since 2015, this Government have not increased the grant to nurseries in line with their actual costs. That is also why some nurseries are going out of business now.
Secondly, we have always wanted a workforce plan to professionalise and retain nursery staff and to increase the number of staff with a positive recruitment campaign. We know that effective early years free childcare and nursery support pays dividends in later education and employment. If these two issues are not fully supported now, it risks making the problems facing parents and childcare providers even worse, and many parents will find they cannot get access to the nursery places they need. Relaxing staff-to-child ratios simply is not the answer. Children’s safety should be our number one priority, rather than being reduced to a cost-cutting measure. All these key practical issues could be solved if the Government reversed the tax cuts of £4 billion a year that they have given to the big banks, on top of what they are offering now.
The proposal to abolish the work capability assessment and create enhanced universal credit for disabled people sounds attractive in theory. The WCA was—is—a flawed process and disabled people found themselves in the hands of assessors who did not understand, I am afraid sometimes deliberately, the barriers their disability presents to entering the workplace. However, the new system relies entirely on personal independence payments assessments working; they do not.
Assessors often underplay the impact of a person’s disability when they write up their recommendation. Worse, there is considerable evidence that some lie in the face of the evidence. How do we know this? An extraordinarily high percentage of disabled people whose PIP applications are rejected win on appeal, so the system is already failing. The mandatory review stage, internally in DWP, overturns only 12% of PIP cases but at the next stage, external tribunal, applicants have an astonishing 70% success rate. Are the Government planning to reform the PIP assessment process to ensure that these appalling practices cease and that people who generally need PIP support and who will get this new help will win, right at the start? By the way, there is a substantial bill to the state in fighting these appeals, and therefore to the taxpayer. Fighting appeals costs the DWP a shocking £50 million per year and if the PIP process is not sorted out, the new process will not work either.
The Government’s proposal to help those who are ill but not disabled back into work is interesting. But what happens to someone in a village who has a bad back, confirmed by their GP, and is offered a job in a town with no bus service from that village? They cannot get to that job on a bicycle. Can the Minister say if they will be sanctioned, or the doctor’s advice will take priority? DWP’s history on this is not good. We know that sanctions often do not work. There are far too many stories of despair at the draconian rules, and suicide.
Public services and their staff appear to have been almost ignored in the Budget—but then, they do not begin with an E. The Budget plans for an increase of around 1% per annum for public services over the next three years, but with promises already made for the NHS and social care—which, by the way, include the breaking news in the last half-hour of a deal for the nurses and ambulance workers—that is nowhere near what is needed for the NHS, given where inflation is.
It is not the NHS alone. All our councils, as well as police, fire and water, will struggle to deliver their statutory duties, let alone retain staff, if there is virtually no new money to pay for increases. The workforces are all struggling. There are record vacancies, particularly in the NHS and social care. We also saw a total failure to invest in fixing crumbling hospitals and supporting local health services, as well as public health. This shows that the Conservatives do not understand that you cannot get Britain back to work without fixing the real crisis in our NHS and social care.
Some good news over the last couple of months has given the Chancellor a bit of headroom, although economists are arguing that his is a high-risk strategy, given the volatility of the economy and global politics at the moment. Instead of supporting the most vulnerable—including ensuring that our public services can survive on more than 1%—and helping to kickstart the recovery that Britain so badly needs, the Chancellor chose to use the debt and deficit ratios for a number of temporary spending commitments now. The Government believe those will look good on election leaflets. The reality is that the Chancellor has built in a number of future policy liabilities, not just for next year but for the next Parliament. This will ensure that local government, the NHS and government departments all struggle even more to deliver core statutory services. It is not just a shame; it is shameful.
Economy: Sustainable Jobs
Baroness Brinton Excerpts(11 years, 4 months ago)
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Baroness Brinton
To move that this House takes note of the importance of sustainable jobs to the Exchequer and the British economy.
Baroness Brinton
My Lords, three years ago when this coalition Government were first formed, both the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives made it plain that despite our political differences, and there are inevitably many, we had to come together to focus on the economy, moving the country out of recession, and to get spending back into balance. I think that most Governments across the world have found coping with the effects of the global recession challenging, and we are no exception.
Yesterday’s comprehensive spending review announcement showed that we are not through the tough times. However, talking to businesses, I am beginning to hear a different tone. The heads down, “let’s just survive this” approach is beginning to lift, and for some sectors, notably the knowledge economy, there are some signs of early growth. Vince Cable MP, the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, has created an effective industrial strategy, investing £5.5 billion in supporting science, high-tech manufacturing and renewable energy to build jobs for the future, many of which will be competing globally.
This focus on the global market is critical to growth. Some 80% of the UK’s small and medium-sized enterprises are not exporting. While for many local businesses exporting is not appropriate, there are some that would really benefit. Statistics show that there is a 34% increase in productivity in the first year of exporting. It also helps with the survival rates of businesses. UK Trade and Investment has a key role in supporting local businesses as they take their first steps in exporting, which will strengthen their chances of survival and help them to grow.
They also need help from banks. I am pleased that the Secretary of State for BIS has launched the regional growth fund—£2.6 billion—to help leverage additional funding from investors, as well as providing clear expectations of the banking sector in its approach to lending to SMEs. To date, the first three rounds of the regional growth fund have leveraged £13 billion of private sector investment, and either created or protected half a million jobs.
I am less pleased to report that the banking sector still seems to be very slow in responding to this challenge. What measures are the Government taking to ensure that banks lend to small businesses? Without that finance, businesses will find it hard to create new, sustainable jobs.
Jobs are absolutely critical to the economy, and for an individual’s life chances. We need a strong economy to be able to compete on the global stage and we need sustainable jobs for a fairer society, helping everyone to get on in life. Yet business organisations continue to report that serious skills shortages are getting in the way of them competing effectively. Worse, many report losing business to international competitors. The UK Commission for Employment and Skills reports that 16% of vacancies are due to skills shortages; that is, there are not enough qualified applicants for specialist roles such as technicians. Nearly half of those businesses say that they struggle to meet their customer service objectives, and that they also have to delay developing new products or services.
Businesses also report that an estimated 1.5 million employees—that is 5% of the UK workforce—do not have the right skills to be able to carry out their job. This is known as skills gaps in the jargon. This often causes friction, with other staff having to help out, and difficulties in meeting quality standards. Nearly a third of businesses report that skills gaps have increased their operating costs and therefore reduced productivity. The UKCES highlights the importance of workforce skills, making it one of the five drivers of productivity; in turn, that increased productivity will help growth.
Skills are absolutely critical to sustainable jobs. Frankly, UK plc has not done well enough in the past. Future Governments must address this. Courses, particularly in science, technology, engineering and maths, at further and higher education levels, must be promoted and supported, particularly for these critical technician jobs. Core skills in literacy, numeracy and ICT must be strengthened, and it should not be possible to drop either literacy or numeracy at 16. Applied short courses should be available for 16 to 18 year-olds—for example, English for engineers, or statistics for humanities students such as my son, who went on to read psychology at university—that will help give them the skills they need.
Full-time study is not always appropriate for young people. For many, the best route into work is through an apprenticeship. This Government have created more than 1.2 million new apprentices. Last year there were 11 applicants for every apprenticeship, which says quite clearly that currently there are not enough employers offering apprenticeships. Those that do offer apprenticeships use them to train staff over a number of years, so that the progression from intermediate level, at which most young people start an apprenticeship at 16, to advanced level and on to higher apprenticeships is becoming more common.
Last year there were 3,700 new starts for higher apprenticeships—a whopping 67% increase on the previous year—specifically responding to the skills shortages to which I referred earlier. Marshall Aerospace in Cambridge is one such employer to offer apprenticeships across the company, not just in technician roles. Young people from all over the country apply, knowing that they will be supported from the age of 16 right the way through degree-level courses and some postgraduate study for a satisfying job, which also helps the economy and exports. In evidence to the Work and Pensions Select Committee in 2010, the CBI presented data showing that 90% of higher-level apprentices found employment or self-employment at the end of their training and that 40% received an upgrade or promotion shortly afterward. Apprenticeships work.
Since Labour left government, across the country there have been 164,000 new apprenticeship starts in business, administration and law alone, showing that it is not just in technical subjects where there is a large growth. Businesses say how important it is for them to be able to train staff in the work that they want them to do, and they are also able to provide remedial help in literacy and numeracy.
Another myth is that apprenticeships are just for men. The majority of new apprenticeship starts are now women. Increasingly, they are starting in non-traditional female work such as construction and engineering. I concede that they are still very much in the minority but it is an encouraging start.
Unemployment is a scourge and youth unemployment particularly devastating. OECD figures just published show that young people aged 16 to 29 in Britain spend about two years and four months out of work, many having given up, more or less. Andreas Schleicher, the OECD’s deputy director of education, says:
“The short-term impact on individuals, families and communities beg for urgent policy responses; the longer-term impact, in terms of skills loss, scarring effects and de-motivation, will affect countries’ potential for recovery”.
It is worth pointing out that we do not do as badly as many of our OECD competitors. For Spain, the figure is 3.6 years, for Italy 3.5 years, and for Ireland 3.3 years. But he is absolutely right that this must continue to be a priority for this Government. That is why the Liberal Democrats pushed for £1 billion to fund the youth contract, aiming to create 410,000 job opportunities for young people, with a wage subsidy of up to £2,275 for employers taking on a young person.
The youth contract is beginning to work. The number of young people deemed to have been unemployed is beginning to reduce. The latest figures show a fall of 185,000—the lowest since the three months to May 2008, before the financial crisis.
There is also evidence to show that employers are unaware of the support available. What are the Government doing to ensure that employers get this information? Then further jobs will be created and we will see more young people who were formerly out of work starting on their careers.
I return briefly to the OECD report. The lower your skills level the more chance there is that you will be out of work. Of young people who are unemployed, a quarter are without five good GCSEs, 14% have good GCSEs but no further qualification, and 8% have a degree. That is stark. Skills are essential for jobs in the 21st century. Young people without qualifications need both education and employment, whether apprenticeships or courses at their local FE college. Last year, further education colleges saw an 83% increase in applications from unemployed young people recognising that they needed to increase their skills level. Over a quarter of these moved quickly into sustainable employment as they left their college.
Liberal Democrats believe that careers information, advice and guidance are absolutely critical for young people. While welcoming careers advice now starting at the age of 13, we regret the removal of face-to-face independent advice to all pupils. We want to see more young people moved into vocational training and education that is right for them. The evidence from colleges shows that inconsistent rules about what type of courses are funded, the availability of local jobs and the difficulty of colleges in tracking student progress are the biggest barriers to working effectively with the unemployed.
Worse than that, the APPG for Further Education, Skills and Lifelong Learning recently heard of Jobcentre Plus staff pulling young people off courses at colleges, as it was—in their advisers’ view—time they went for a job interview. They thus lost their place on a course that would have given them a better chance of a skilled job. This silo working between departments needs to stop. Can the list of DWP-approved courses be agreed with BIS, rather than in isolation, to prevent this happening again? It is, of course, a waste of public money, as well as being demoralising for the young people concerned.
Despite problems like this, the youth contract and apprenticeships are clearly having an impact on youth unemployment, unlike the problems with Labour’s New Deal and the Future Jobs Fund during the previous Government, which did not create new jobs or help people into work, and were very expensive. For example, the Future Jobs Fund cost £6,500 for every job it created, and in Birmingham, only 2% of Future Jobs Fund placements actually led to jobs. Compare that to some of the figures that I have referred to earlier in this speech.
We are on the right track. Even though the road from the economic collapse in 2008 is hard, we are making progress. Sustainable jobs are a key part of the rebalancing needed in the economy. We have helped businesses to create more than 1 million private sector jobs since taking power, which has more than offset the number of public jobs lost—painful as that is. We have created 1.2 million apprenticeships and provided £2,000 worth of support for employers. We have created 110,000 work placements for unemployed young people. Being in work improves your health and well-being; it gives workers’ children a better start in life; and it helps prevent isolation and social breakdown. More than this, jobs created to help companies grow increase productivity and the UK’s ability to export and trade abroad, bringing in much needed extra wealth. It is a virtuous circle which will give us a stronger economy and a fairer society in which everyone has a chance to get on in life.
Baroness Brinton
My Lords, I thank your Lordships’ House for a fascinating debate over the past couple of hours and for the contributions that noble Lords have made. My noble friend Lord Teverson rightly focused on the green economy and its critical role in creating sustainable jobs. The noble Earl, Lord Shrewsbury, highlighted the excellent JCB apprenticeship scheme and raised worries about bureaucracy and red tape in the Environment Agency. My noble friend Lord German rightly brought in the plight of the long-term unemployed and my noble friend Lady Sharp, in her usual insightful way, reminded us of the lost generation of 18 to 24 year-olds in the 1980s and that we must never let it happen again.
The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Bristol talked about the key role of co-operatives and social enterprises in creating sustainable jobs and contributing to growth. Along with the Minister, I loved the idea of the Portsmouth Cathedral Innovation Centre. My noble friend Lord Kirkwood reminded us about careful use of language—the unemployed are strivers too. My noble friend Lord Cotter once again demonstrated his passion for supporting young people into work and talked about the lack of advice for young people in schools about apprenticeships. This must be remedied. My noble friend Lord Shipley spoke about the importance of the regional growth fund and reminded us that sustainable employment is key to social inclusion.
The noble Lord, Lord Wood of Anfield, rightly echoed the concern of my noble friend Lord Kirkwood about zero-hours contracts and part-time employment. I am grateful for the response from my noble friend the Minister on that. I believe that zero hours is a scourge, an abuse of the power of employment and needs to be addressed.
Finally, I thank my noble friend the Minister for all his responses to the varied questions that we have raised for him today, in particular the response about the level of English and maths in apprenticeships. It is lovely that they will be asked to study up to level 2 but my belief is that level 2 is not enough. I particularly thank him for taking up the issue of jobcentre staff pulling young people off courses and colleges to go for interviews. With that, I thank everyone for their contribution.
Small and Medium-sized Enterprises
Baroness Brinton Excerpts(12 years ago)
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Lord Newby
My Lords, there has been a long-standing problem in small businesses raising equity in the UK. The EIS is one component in doing that. Of course, as we look towards next year’s Budget, we are reviewing all programmes that might offer any capacity to increase the flow of funds into small businesses.
Baroness Brinton
My Lords, given that the ITEM club has just predicted that lending to SMEs by banks will fall to a six-year low this year, with 38% of applicants being rejected in quarter 1, and given that banks seem to be using money from the Bank of England to lend rather to homeowners with equity, will the Minister consider ring-fencing a good proportion of the Funding for Lending scheme funds specifically for SMEs?
Lord Newby
My Lords, I think that a large proportion of these funds will be used for SMEs. That is why the banks have introduced new products specifically for SMEs following the introduction of the programme. I have already referred to RBS. Lloyds has done a similar thing and is reducing the interest that SMEs pay by 1%. Lloyds has placed double-page ads in some of the papers, which noble Lords may have seen. So the banks are directly targeting at SMEs a significant proportion of the funds that will now be available.
Universities: VAT on Alterations to Listed Buildings
Baroness Brinton Excerpts(12 years, 4 months ago)
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Lord Sassoon
My Lords, I fully accept that universities will be affected, but that is not a reason not to go ahead with this measure. It is for sound and principled reasons, which I have summarised. There has been an extensive consultation process, including my honourable friend the Exchequer Secretary meeting representatives from a number of Oxbridge colleges, including the noble Baroness’s successor as principal of St Anne’s College, Oxford. There have been various numbers, including numbers coming from Oxford, which seem to vary considerably, meeting by meeting. I do not therefore recognise the £150 million figure, but I accept that there is a cost. As a result of the consultation, there have been significant changes to extend the transitional period and some of the details of the transition, but the change will go ahead.
Baroness Brinton
My Lords, does the Minister believe that the additional cost to universities resulting from the removal of the zero rate should be met from their teaching and research resources, or by an additional Higher Education Funding Council grant, or should it be passed on to the occupants of student housing?
Lord Sassoon
My Lords, it will be for the universities and colleges affected to decide what they do. We have made generous transitional arrangements which give the affected institutions time to plan. Of course, the total of higher education institutions’ funding will rise during the next two to three years, so there is time for those institutions to make the necessary decisions.