Youth Unemployment
Baroness Prosser Excerpts(10 years, 8 months ago)
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Lord Freud
We are looking to improve careers advice in schools and Ofsted has confirmed that it will give this guidance a higher priority. Reducing unemployment is clearly a central objective for this Government, and I thought it was interesting that a couple of weeks ago the Financial Times reported that we have now overtaken the United States in our participation rate, a rate that normally falls during a recession. We have also been pushing employment up in the key 25 to 35 year-old group between 2007 and 2013.
Baroness Prosser (Lab)
My Lords, will the Minister explain why this Question is being answered by the Department for Work and Pensions and why we do not have a Minister from either BIS or the Department for Education? Is it because the Government see youth unemployment as merely a welfare problem and not as an issue of training and getting young people into work? Is he further aware that the Department for Education spends 0.04% of its budget on careers advice, the lowest percentage in the developed world?
Apprenticeships
Baroness Prosser Excerpts(10 years, 9 months ago)
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Baroness Prosser (Lab)
My Lords, I, too, would like to thank my noble friend Lord Young for securing this debate. In last week’s debate in this Chamber on the future of employment, among others the noble Lord, Lord Giddens, addressed your Lordships’ House and suggested a slightly scary scenario relating to the growth in the influence of technology and the use of robots. He set out what this would mean for the future job prospects of today’s and tomorrow’s youth. I am not going to concentrate on that particular dilemma, although I hope someone in Government or in a think tank is doing so. Suffice it to say the world of work has already been turned upside down with the help of technological innovation and the influence of globalisation. Without looking at the changes yet to come, we know that the range of skills and the areas of knowledge required by today’s labour market are very different from those needed 20 or 25 years ago. The question of how we increase the number and quality of apprenticeships is, therefore, welcome indeed.
First, let us consider how we think young people are being prepared to take up an apprenticeship. We need trained and able people in various sectors of the economy, but none more so than in science and engineering. It is agreed and understood that the country has a severe shortage of people qualified in these fields and that, of those who are, too many are concentrated within the older age range. If this problem is to be dealt with by the new, young blood, why are we paying so little attention to the importance of good-quality careers advice? We are the only country in the developed world which spends more on careers advice for older people than it does for the young. The Department for Education spends just 0.04 % of its budget in this area.
Why is not more effort being made to encourage, enable and reward schools and colleges for engaging with employers and for widening their horizons to get more girls into the traditional STEM areas of study? This is not beyond the wit of man—or, for that matter, woman. For example, girls could be taught in separate classes for maths, science and computer studies, allowing concepts to be presented in ways more appealing to girls. This does not have to be a permanent arrangement but a “separate to integrate” approach. Work recently done by the TUC shows very serious stereotyping within the take-up of apprenticeships. The statistics read as though it were 1914 rather than 2014: health and social care—83% female; vehicle maintenance and repair—98% male; children’s and young people’s workforce—93% female; electrotechnical—98% male. The salary returns for these particular choices also tell us why the gender pay gap is so alive and well. I know that many of the better employers are trying hard to break down these stereotypical barriers, but government can play a part as well. How about fiscal incentives for companies to give girls more taster days and more opportunities for work experience?
Secondly, what are the Government and the public sector in general doing to play their part in improving the number of opportunities for apprenticeships? Greater participation by government departments would send a very important message. In addition, the leverage of procurement is a powerful tool, as has already been mentioned. Government and public contracts over a certain value should carry with them the absolute requirement for the contractor to engage with the apprenticeship programme, and to ensure that opportunities are available in equal measure to both male and female applicants and to applicants from the black and minority ethnic community.
I have just a couple of final thoughts. In 2011-12, almost 84% of the growth in the number of apprenticeships was in just 10 sectors of the economy, and those mostly in low-paying areas. We are not keeping pace in engineering and construction, where we need to up the game. We also need to keep a watchful eye on standards within apprenticeships. A one-year training course is not an apprenticeship. Ensuring that the skill level reaches level 3 and above will be important to support and monitor. The role of sector skills councils is important here. They can help employers find their way around funding options and can help to ensure that training programmes are bought into and understood by the workforce as a whole.
I hope that the Minister will bring this debate to the attention of his counterparts in the Department for Education, because this is an interdepartmental responsibility and the policy will be successful only if there is an interdepartmental response.
Millennium Development Goals
Baroness Prosser Excerpts(11 years, 2 months ago)
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Baroness Prosser (Lab)
My Lords, I join others in thanking the noble Baroness, Lady Jenkin, for tabling the debate. The introduction of the millennium development goals in 2000 was greeted with enthusiasm by those involved in international development. A target-based programme designed to address poverty and exclusion in all their forms was a welcome step forward from disparate projects and unco-ordinated expenditure. The outcome document from the UN special event of 25 September this year, convened to review MDG progress and to chart a way forward, states:
“We will place a strong emphasis on all approaches that have a cross cutting and multiplier effect. In particular, we recognise that promoting gender equality, and empowering women and girls, underpins and advances progress across all the Goals. We will resolutely promote gender equality and eliminate the range of barriers to women and girls’ empowerment in our societies”.
This is welcome news. While this concept has been recognised by many for a considerable period of time, programmes which include this approach have been few and far between.
It also has to be recognised that progress will be made only if broad-sweep statements such as the one above are developed into detailed plans which themselves recognise that women’s moves towards equality are stymied and frustrated by systemic hurdles and barriers, many of which have been in place for years and which will be moved only by determination and by educating the men involved as to the value to be gained by the whole community. In part this will be achieved by enabling women to move into positions of influence. This could be at local level, playing a part in the determination of priorities, or regionally or nationally. Decision-making bodies from which women are excluded are most likely to contribute along a traditional path, with little attention being paid, for example, to healthcare or educational needs. Women’s influence on sharing resources is essential to outcomes beneficial to all.
International Women’s Day
Baroness Prosser Excerpts(11 years, 9 months ago)
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Baroness Prosser
My Lords, I, too, thank the noble Baroness, Lady Stowell, for initiating this debate in celebration of International Women’s Day. The title of the debate enables us to roam far and wide, and we know that the issues are many and various, but I have chosen to concentrate my remarks on ways in which the situation of women can be improved by the actions and interventions of men and boys, which the Minister mentioned in her opening remarks. It was the subject of the thematic debate at the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women in 2004 and 2009, and is reflected to some extent within the detail and requirements of a number of the millennium development goals.
Before we depress ourselves completely on the downside of the situation, let us consider how far, over the past 50 or so years, society’s view of women has moved on. Last year, my noble friend Lord Monks forwarded to me an e-mail entitled “Can You Believe This?”. The content of the e-mail consisted of a series of American 1950s newspaper and magazine advertisements commonly used at that time without a hint of irony or even a raised eyebrow. One is an ad for a Kenwood Chef food mixer. The man is saying, “The Chef does everything but cook, but that’s what wives are for”. His happy, smiling wife is looking very grateful. The second is for a vacuum cleaner, which is decorated with a lovely blue satin ribbon. A beautiful woman is lying on the floor beside the object, stroking it and reading the gift card. The wording on the ad says, “Christmas morning she’ll be happier with a Hoover”. I somehow doubt she was happy even then, but she certainly would not be now.
Of course things have moved on, and the advertising industry would not dream of suggesting such copy now, but media images of women still concentrate on a woman’s looks, size and age. Older women lose out on television and in theatre and film because there are so few strong and central roles available to them. Female presenters and newsreaders have to look perfect with not a coiffed hair out of place. This would not be so irritating if the same criteria were applied to men but, judging by some of the sights we see, this clearly is not the case. There is a big responsibility here for men at the top of TV and radio to recognise that this is not only silly and unfair but presents a skewed image of women and helps to promote the notion of woman as object.
Advertising and the media are not, of course, the only areas with room for improvement. Comments have been made this week by the previous Master of the Rolls, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Neuberger, regarding the small number of female senior judges. He unsurprisingly comes out against positive discrimination, but positive action programmes could be used to help improve the balance. Special events not just for women but to which senior women from the legal profession are invited could be used to help those women get to know the senior men in the profession, and to help the senior men realise that women lawyers are not, after all, such a strange species, and that just like the men they too might have hopes of moving on and up.
The Government’s encouragement of the work of my noble friend Lord Davies in increasing the number of women on company boards is to be lauded and welcomed. However, the businessmen in those companies should not need to wait for government initiatives and pressure. They could, for example, introduce special training programmes to help bring forward some of the women already employed in the company so that they feel ready to move through the pipeline. It makes economic sense and helps to instil commitment to the organisation. Companies should also ensure that they have good return-to-work programmes enabling mothers to continue with their careers, and add to that by welcoming and encouraging paternity leave and flexibility for fathers.
Encouraging women to hold down senior positions in the public and private sectors, and ensuring that they can do so, should not be seen as some sort of extra-curricular activity, but still we continue to have to press the point home. Why, for example, are there not more opportunities for good quality part-time jobs? This is not rocket science, as was shown by two young women in 2005 who started an organisation called Women Like Us. This came about from frustrated conversations at the school gates between them and other young mums looking for decent part-time work. Linking their demands with the needs of local employers proved a very successful approach and, late last year, with the sponsorship of Ernst & Young, Women Like Us launched Timewise Jobs, a website dedicated to providing access to quality part-time professional employment vacancies.
Come on, all you male employers: use a bit of imagination and initiative. Not only will you be on the road to providing a better gender-balanced workforce, you will save money by not losing good and committed female staff who find it impossible to balance full-time employment with being a parent.
There are a million and one ways in which men could be more helpful and could use their influence to increase women’s chances and status. Most important is to start at the beginning, and to look at the role of families and education. It would be wonderful if all families were sufficiently well organised and caring of each other to allow us to say that the home is where appropriate influences should begin and end. It is of course key that we encourage parents to set a good example by treating each other with respect. Seeing fathers help in the home—cooking, tending children and so on—also provides good role models.
However, not all families are able or willing to do this, and the role of the state then becomes important. This could be encapsulated in the Department for Education’s personal, social, health and economic education programme. Unfortunately, this is not part of the core curriculum so many young people will not have the chance to look at life, women and girls in a different and, I hope, more respectful way. This is a missed opportunity on the part of the Government to be able to say that they are playing their part in ensuring that the gender gap, which manifests itself in so many ways in our society, is recognised as being in real need of attention, and that they will play a leading and strategic role in addressing the part that can be played by men and boys.
Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill
Baroness Prosser Excerpts(11 years, 9 months ago)
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Lord Harris of Haringey
My Lords, having listened to all the debates today in your Lordships’ House, I am very conscious that there is a clear consensus among your Lordships on the importance of all organisations, particularly public sector organisations, working towards achieving equality. That has emerged in all the discussion that we have had. Core to that is the equality duty on public bodies.
I understand that the Government are reviewing all this but I hope that this evening’s debate will be influential in ensuring not only that they recognise the value of that general equality duty for the whole of the public sector, but also see the value of strengthening it in the way that this amendment seeks to do. My experience is that, if you are to achieve equality in the workplace—equality in terms of the way in which you provide services—it requires several things to be in place.
First, it requires visible leadership from those responsible for the organisation or in charge of it that shows that they believe that this is important. Secondly, it requires that policies are made in an evidence-based way; that information is used to assess how the policies are working, how the services are being delivered, who benefits and who perhaps is missing out. That requires the collection and collation of information, so that those in charge of the organisation can make the appropriate decisions. It also requires a degree of enforcement. But to say that you can achieve all of these things only by enforcement or only by one element of those different requirements is to set the arrangement up to fail.
I have listened with great interest to the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Deben, who has highlighted that you do not want to create a tick-box mentality. That is absolutely right and is true in all sorts of areas. That is not what you want to achieve. However, if people are trying to apply the general duty on equality—or indeed what would be implied by this amendment in terms of the way in which equality impact assessments are concerned—in a tick-box mentality, then you will lose out entirely. This amendment sets a framework by which all public authorities can say, “We are doing our job properly and effectively”. How can you argue that there is something overprescriptive by saying that the duty of the public authority should be to assess and consult on the likely impact of its proposed policies? Surely that is sensible good practice. How can you say that that is overprescriptive? It is simply requiring public authorities to do what is right.
Similarly, requiring public authorities to monitor their policies for any adverse impact is again requiring that they do what is right. It is not being overprescriptive; it is simply saying to them, “This is what you should do to deliver your general duty on equality”. This is not an overprescriptive amendment; it is something that is there to provide a framework which public authorities can use.
I am also very clear that, in making decisions, public bodies have to look, check and see what the implications are. These assessments provide a framework which requires them to consider all the relevant factors in doing that. I know that when we make a decision on a public body we are required to consider all the relevant considerations and not consider those considerations which are irrelevant—I forget the precise form of words, but that is the standard rubric. This provides a framework to make sure that all the relevant considerations are being addressed. More importantly, it provides an audit trail, so that anyone looking at it can see how a decision has been taken and how the different issues have been factored in because there has been an equality impact assessment. That places quite a pressure on those making decisions that they have not only considered all the relevant factors but are able to justify what they have done. That is an extremely important and very good discipline for those who make public decisions.
The equalities duty has been an important step forward for public bodies in this country. Some of them still struggle with how to implement it and some still have a long way to go but, as a basic building block for ensuring that public services are delivered fairly and in line with the objectives that I think all of your Lordships have said they support during the course of various debates today, they have been extremely valuable.
I mentioned at the beginning that one of the requirements for delivering equality, whether at local level, public body or by government, is leadership. I hope that the Government will show clear leadership in agreeing that there is an importance to the public sector general duty on equality and accepting the importance of this amendment, which provides a sensible framework for equality impact assessments.
The Prime Minister is worried that this is going to become overbureaucratic. I suspect that by providing a framework in legislation for what is needed, some of those overbureaucratic elements will disappear simply because people are no longer trying to interpret what might be a necessary way of doing this and erring on the side of caution. This is a way of setting out a framework which will enhance the work that public authorities should be doing to promote equality.
Baroness Prosser
My Lords, I support this amendment. I was reminded by the noble Lord, Lord Deben, of something that happened a good many years ago when I was the national women’s secretary of the Transport and General Workers’ Union. I was on a mission to include within the rulebook of the union requirements for each of our administrative areas to provide positive action programmes for women, and for sanctions to be introduced into the rulebook against those senior officials of the union who might be found guilty of harassment or bad behaviour towards women. “Attacked” is not the right word, but the response of more senior people in the union than me—men—verged on that. They said to me: “We don’t need a change in the rulebook, what we need is a change of culture”. I said: “Of course we do, I absolutely agree that we need a change of culture, but while we are working on the change of culture we will have a change in the rulebook so that outwith those rules you will not operate”.
We all know that large bureaucracies find it terribly difficult to shift. The idea that organisations out there—public sector bodies, services, et cetera—are going to be able to change their culture, and be willing or capable of doing that in any speedy fashion without some framework within which we require them to operate, seems to me to be cloud-cuckoo-land. I do not believe that if we remove the pressure for equality impact assessments to be the final step in delivering public sector equality duties we will see any change at all going on out there. I support this amendment and I hope that others will also do so.
Baroness Stowell of Beeston
My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords and to the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, and my noble friend Lady Hussein-Ece. I will explain my views on their amendment. I am grateful to them because it provides me with an opportunity to respond to some points which are important in this wider debate about equality impact assessments and the public sector equality duty.
Before I get into that, let me say from the start that this Government have a strong commitment to establishing a strong, modern, fair Britain which is built on two key principles: equal treatment and equal opportunity for all. The equality duty was designed to ensure that the needs of people are taken into account when public bodies develop, change, implement or review a new policy or service.
The amendment was discussed in Committee and, as has been explained by the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, seeks to impose a number of processes on public bodies in addition to the central requirement to have due regard to the three main aims of the equality duty when exercising their functions. Some of the requirements it seeks to impose are already an integral part of the process of complying with the public sector equality duty. Having due regard to the equality duty when exercising their public functions is the legal duty on all public bodies. Let me be clear; that has not changed, nor has the requirement to be able to demonstrate that it has happened. For example, the proposal for public bodies to assess and monitor the likely impact of their proposed and actual policies is already required, while the requirement to publish the results of such assessments is caught by the requirement in the specific duties to publish information to demonstrate compliance with the duty. These requirements include considering the need to eliminate unlawful discrimination, advance equality of opportunity, and foster good relations between people with different characteristics. Public bodies are also required to publish information at least annually to show how they have done this, and to set at least every four years equality objectives that will promote these aims. There is therefore already a thorough requirement on public bodies to have due regard to the public sector equality duty.
Baroness Prosser
“Commission for Equality and Human Rights: appointment of Chair and commissioners
(1) Schedule 1 to the Equality Act 2006 (the Commission: constitution, &c) is amended as follows.
(2) In Part 1, after paragraph 1(1) insert—
“(1A) Appointments shall not take effect until such time as they are approved by a Committee of both Houses of Parliament.”
(3) In Part 2, paragraph 7, for sub-paragraph (2) substitute—
“(2) An appointment under sub-paragraph (1)(a) shall not take effect until such time as it has been approved by a Committee of both Houses of Parliament.””
Baroness Prosser
Before speaking to this amendment, I should like to clarify for your Lordships any question of a possible conflict of interest. I was until 3 December last year the deputy chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission. At that point, I had served two three-year terms and my appointment terminated. I therefore no longer have a direct interest in the commission but I do of course retain a general interest in both the commission and its work.
Turning to the matter at hand, perhaps I may express to noble Lords my overall view of the value of this part of the debate on Clause 57 and why this group of amendments is so important to the future of the commission and to equalities in our country more generally. The ability of citizens to feel and believe that they have an equal chance in life and, importantly, to feel and believe that their Government think they should have an equal chance is key and central to the development of a harmonious and comfortable society. At this particular time, with its harsh economic circumstances and shortage of employment opportunities, it is common for those who are struggling to lay the blame for their plight on those less familiar to them.
Situations such as these require Governments to be strong and forthright in making clear their support for tolerance and fairness, and to speak loudly of the value of legislation and government machinery which helps people to enjoy equal rights and to access recourse to justice when those rights are violated. Comments from government which continually link equalities legislation with red tape, bureaucracy and burdens undermine the confidence of citizens and allow for the growth of intolerance and unfair behaviour. The purpose of this group of amendments is to enable the Government to be seen to recognise that the Equality and Human Rights Commission is a valuable, serious and important tool in delivering and regulating equality legislation in this country. It would put the commission on the same footing, for example, as the National Audit Office, the Electoral Commission and the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman.
Strengthening the commission’s accountability to Parliament has been endorsed by the United Nations International Co-ordinating Committee chair. In a letter to the then Minister for Equalities, Theresa May, the ICC chair, Dr Mousa Borayzat, suggests that the Government should use the opportunity of this Bill to strengthen the provisions of the Equality Act 2006 in areas related to the commission’s independence.
Parliamentary scrutiny of the appointment of the commission chair has already taken place. The noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill, appointed in November of last year, appeared before the Joint Committee on Human Rights. That extra interest and study of the recommended candidate not only adds to the status of the appointment but involves and includes Parliament in the process. Greater knowledge and greater transparency ensue. Amendment 77 calls for this process to be extended to the appointment of commissioners—again, increasing knowledge and transparency—and I look forward to the Minister’s response on that point.
Amendments 78 and 79 seek to rectify the current unsatisfactory position whereby the commission’s annual report and accounts and the strategic plan are presented to whichever Secretary of State happens to have the current responsibility for equalities generally. Since its inception, the commission has reported to four different Secretaries of State, each of whom has had equalities added to their already busy portfolio of responsibilities. Changes to the responsibilities of those Secretaries of State have meant that the commission has been shuffled around Whitehall depending on where the Secretary of State came from. It is a very unsatisfactory state of affairs. Given that the rights and responsibilities contained within the equalities agenda touch every single adult in the land, is it not more sensible and more appropriate for Parliament to oversee and question these important reports and plans?
Finally, I turn to Amendment 80, which calls for the commission’s budget to be approved by Parliament. Two dangers arise from leaving the situation as it is. First, the current practice is for a budget allocation to be drawn up and allocated to the Government Equalities Office. This money then gets separated out with a share going to the EHRC. This hardly helps to instil any sense that the commission can maintain a healthy independence from government. Secondly, and most seriously, the EHRC is internationally recognised as the national human rights institution for England and Wales. Crucially, financial health and independence are central to our being able to maintain that international recognition.
In 2012, the UN General Assembly adopted the Belgrade principles. These relate to the relationship between NHRIs and national parliaments, and they include several mechanisms for closer relations between parliaments and national human rights institutions. For example, parliaments should develop a legal framework for the NHRI which secures its independence and its direct accountability to parliament. The principles also suggest that parliaments should invite members of NHRIs to debate their strategic plan and/or their annual programme of activities in relation to their annual budget. These amendments would enable government to state clearly that arrangements in this country most certainly comply with the Belgrade principles.
None of these amendments should concern the Government’s desire to go easy on regulation or so-called red tape. They are all designed to help the Government to promote their commitment to the equality and human rights agenda and to send a message to the citizens of Britain that government believes in openness and transparency and the delivery of equal opportunities for all. I beg to move.
Baroness Hussein-Ece
My Lords, I shall not keep the House too long as the noble Baroness, Lady Prosser, has given such a comprehensive introduction to this group of amendments, to which I have added my name. There are just a few points that I should like to add.
The steps outlined in the amendments are, as I see it, enabling. They enable the commission to fulfil its mandate more effectively and to achieve more balance between independence, accountability and transparency. They build on recent developments such as the first pre-appointment hearing of the commission’s chair, as was mentioned.
I declare an interest as a commissioner of the Equality and Human Rights Commission until last December. I am all too well aware that the commission is very keen to advance its relationship with Parliament and to have the ability to work across government departments. As has been said, the current arrangement has acted as a hindrance and has not oiled the wheels, so to speak, to enable the commission to work more effectively with other government departments—something that it should be doing. It has the responsibility to work with all departments across government, given its wide-ranging remit. The current arrangement of going through the Government Equalities Office has limited this to an extent. I see the commission’s responsibility for assessing how the Government comply with, for example, domestic and international equality rights obligations as a positive development and a strengthening of its relationship with Parliament.
At Second Reading, I said that setting the budget is so important that it needs to be done in a more timely, transparent and effective way. I was at the budget-setting process last year. I remember being at a board meeting in February when the commissioners still had no idea what their budget would be from 1 April. That is not satisfactory or acceptable, and it needs to be addressed. Taking these amendments on board would go some way to addressing this and making sure that the commission becomes more transparent and accountable and is allowed to function. We talk about a red tape challenge, but it goes both ways. There has been a lot of red tape attached to this commission from its inception. It has almost been bound and gagged at birth and has not been allowed to function properly. This is a way of releasing it to an extent, while keeping some important checks and balances in place.
Baroness Prosser
I thank the Minister for that very helpful response. In fact, it was rather more helpful than I thought it might be. Obviously, they were very positive words and comments. Perhaps I may make a couple of points on some of the matters that have been raised. I am grateful to hear that discussions are going on with the Joint Committee on Human Rights regarding further involvement in the appointment of commissioners, for example. The discussion around the development of protocol will be extremely helpful. On the budget, I of course understand that these matters start their life within the Treasury and work their way out from there. Perhaps some consideration might be given to the involvement of the Joint Committee on Human Rights as the debate evolves.
Finally, the framework document has gone through many iterations over the past year or so. I am grateful to hear that it seems to be moving towards containing a respect for the independence of the commission, which has been a concern during that time. With those comments and with thanks to the noble Baroness for her remarks, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Taxation: Families
Baroness Prosser Excerpts(11 years, 11 months ago)
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Baroness Prosser
My Lords, I join others in thanking the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, for tabling this debate. I particularly thank her for her excellent opening speech.
I will direct my remarks towards the situation of the working poor. Back in the 1980s, at the height of Margaret Thatcher’s Government’s attack on the funding of public services, a journalist whose name I have forgotten coined the phrase, “private wealth and public squalor”. Fast-forward 30 years, and we are facing the same situation, although somehow worse. It is worse because over that period the gap between rich and poor has grown exponentially, so that we now have private wealth, public squalor, and private poverty.
Downward pressure on wages has come about for a variety of reasons. First, there is the reduced ability of trade unions to maintain, on behalf of their members, wage levels which give workers a fair share of the financial cake, which in turn in the past has provided pressure on the labour market as a whole, lifting up the pay of those at the bottom end of the scale. Organised labour reduces and low-paid, unrepresented work opportunities increase: the balance shifts towards an inexorable decline overall. The continuing use of technological solutions, and the consequent reduction in workforce numbers, within certain sectors of the economy—together with the globalisation of huge swathes of manufacturing—have also played a major part in keeping down the costs of labour.
To add insult to injury, along come the Government with the bright idea that reducing people’s incomes even further will, first, somehow help to solve the debt crisis—I am not sure how taking away the ability of large swathes of the population to have enough money to spend, even on essentials, will put money in the Government’s coffers, but that may be another story—and, secondly, will encourage lazy scroungers to get out of bed in the morning, when in fact two-thirds of the people affected by these cuts are already in work.
Those affected most by the very wide-ranging changes and reductions to benefits are working parents with dependent children. What kind of Government decide to target the poorest in society—people struggling to keep their heads above water, balancing the payment of the electricity bill against the cost of the supermarket shop? Parents are having constantly to tell their children, “No, we can’t go to the football match” or, “No, we can’t go on holiday like your friends do”. Do Ministers have any idea how soul-destroying it is never to be away from the fear of not having a penny piece, and always having to make do and mend, although you are going out to work and trying your hardest? Do the Government seriously think that the children of those families, starved as they are of the opportunity to flourish and grow, are being given the start in life that will enable them to become tomorrow’s committed and fully rounded citizens?
Noble Lords should look at the array of changes taking place. Working families are being bombarded with requirements to reduce their expenditure and/or to increase the number of hours worked each week. How easy is it for a mother, for example, to find an extra eight hours’ work each week and what does that mean for childcare arrangements and costs? These households, which are at the bottom end of the income scale, lose out particularly badly by the use of the CPI for uprating purposes, from cash freezes to child benefit and working tax credit. When replying, can the Minister please not say that it is all right because of the changes to the tax system for lower earners? Many of these families will have had an income below the personal allowance anyway.
The demonisation of the recipients of welfare has been particularly upsetting. I firmly believe that the vast majority of individuals would much prefer to be able to earn sufficient so that they do not have to get involved with “the social”, as it is known. Most folk want financial independence and want their children to have a better life than they have had. There will of course always be a small minority—the workshy and the idle. That has always been an issue, but it must be kept in perspective. They are a tiny minority. We cannot have a low-wage economy and a social system which then blames the low-paid for their own misfortune.
Finally, I think that I am probably the only Member of this House who has spent a long time reliant on welfare benefits. My husband became paralysed at the age of 28, and I spent eight and a half years looking after him and my three young children. I can tell the House that relying on welfare is not a lifestyle choice. We were what is known as “the deserving poor” and were therefore treated with a measure of respect, and probably sympathy. I also had a supportive, although far from well-off, family. However, it should be borne in mind that welfare payments are calculated to leave no space in the personal budget, so that the smallest incident becomes a crisis: the lost school coat, the broken kettle or the worn-out bed linen. How are these things dealt with when there has been no opportunity to set money aside?
The reductions in value now being proposed to the weekly incomes of both the working poor and those who have fallen on hard times through ill health, et cetera, will indeed cause a crisis—and all the rhetoric will be that it is their own fault. We need a strategy for growth, with a well educated and trained workforce and high-quality employment opportunities. That is what will deal with the country’s debt and the deficit.
Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill
Baroness Prosser Excerpts(11 years, 11 months ago)
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Baroness Hollins
My Lords, despite the legal view presented by the noble Lord, Lord Lester, I refer us back to some of the words spoken by my noble friend Lady Campbell of Surbiton. She said that the inclusion of dignity in the commission's general duty provides the glue to bind together anti-discrimination and human rights. I think I got that right. I agree with that and other important points that she made in her eloquent speech. Such an approach underpins the accepted goal of living with dignity and independence. As such, Section 3 is critical in providing coherence to the commission’s duties to promote equality and human rights. I was involved with one of the commission’s predecessor organisations, the Disability Rights Commission, in a major inquiry conducted into discrimination in access to health services by people with learning disabilities or mental illness. It indeed found discrimination; it was very effective and led to some improvements in access to healthcare for those groups. It is very important that such issues continue to be seen as a priority and investigated.
I worry that, without Section 3, that priority may be lost. I oppose the removal of Section 3. It has an important role in focusing the commission’s various duties, and I add my support to the amendments tabled by my noble friend.
Baroness Prosser
My Lords, I did not intend to speak in this debate, but I have been fired up by comments made. I start by declaring an interest as having spent six years, until the beginning of December 2012, as the deputy chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission. I shall be brief. I know that the noble Lord, Lord Lester, and the noble Baroness, Lady Greengross, are not alone in considering that the loss of the section would not cause any harm. Obviously, I respect the right of people to hold a different view, but I make the point that there is a long history in legislative terms of overarching statements of intent being extremely useful to judges and others when determining the meaning of legislation—so, even on that level, it has a value. I run with my noble friend and the noble Lord, Lord Low, especially in his comments that this has a symbolic value. In this country, we are far from being able to consider that there is no further need for symbols, promotion, ideas, excitement or energy about the equality agenda. We are lacking that in great amount at the moment. We need to be as positive as we can about the need for an equality programme within our society. We continue to need to encourage and explain to people the value to society as a whole of the equality agenda.
Finally, having been deputy chair for six years, it is unsurprising that I take exception to some of the comments made about the equality commission, many of which seem to me to be based on myth upon myth. I agree that there have been issues and problems far too complicated and outside the remit of the equality commission to go into here. Equally, I would say that there is a tendency on the part of many to look back at the pre-Equality and Human Rights Commission era and look at the previous commissions through rose-coloured glasses. People involved in each of the three commissions have done that. This has not been a steady or an easy path since the 1960s, when legislation was first introduced to try to address some of these issues. We need to be careful about making comments about the role of the EHRC in recent years without making sure that we are really clear about the issues, why they have arisen and what has been done to try to detract from them. I support this amendment because it is part of a programme of encouragement of a society becoming more equal, understanding and tolerant.
Baroness Thornton
My Lords, it is significant that it has taken an hour and 10 minutes to get to this point. Noble Lords across the Committee feel very strongly about this and I suspect about some of the other amendments that the Government are proposing to this part of the Bill.
We have heard some wonderful speeches this afternoon, including the opening speech from the noble Baroness, Lady Campbell, and sometimes they show aspiration and emotion. The speeches show that these things matter. The noble Lord, Lord Lester, makes some technical analysis about the effects of removing Section 3. I am surprised that such a distinguished campaigner as the noble Lord is out of step on this particular matter.
I do not need to say much more. On these Benches we support the noble Baroness, Lady Campbell, my noble friend Lady Turner and the noble Lord, Lord Low, in these amendments. I expect that the Minister will pray in aid evidence given to the committee that the EHRC has stated that it does not object to these changes in its remit. I confess that I was surprised when I read that. However, we must look at this matter in the context in which those remarks are made. In addition to the proposals to amend the legislative basis of the EHRC, the Government are also undertaking a range of actions that seriously threaten its independence and effectiveness. A few weeks ago the Government published a review of the public sector duty, most of whose members as far as I can see are from either the Conservative Party or the Liberal Democrat party, or they are officials from the GEO. I do not know if they will be taking evidence. If they are, I hope that those who are interested in this matter will tell them what their views are about it.
In the context of this proposal, I ask the Minister if it would not have been better to wait before abolishing the general duties and making these changes to see what the review of the public sector duty proposes, since the Government have used its existence to defend precisely this proposal. Does the Minister think that we are in danger of both these duties being abolished? What effect does she think that will have on the work of the EHRC?
In the Third Reading of the Bill in the Commons, my honourable friend Kate Green said:
“There is still racism and there is still religious hatred. There are still women who … are victims of violence, or who are at risk of it. All those groups continue to suffer from derogatory language, discriminatory behaviour, prejudice and public hostility. It is quite wrong to think that we do not need to continue to protect in legislation a positive duty to promote and improve good relations”.—[Official Report, Commons, 16/10/12; col. 253]
The Minister argued that since the EHRC is bound by the public sector equality duty in Section 147 of the Equality Act 2010, it will still have a duty to consider the need to take steps to promote good relations and activities. Given that we know that the future of this duty is in doubt, I wonder if it is not better to shelve these proposals right now and wait until we see what happens. How is this going to be resolved? If this is taken together with the fact that the EHRC will have its budget cut by 62%, as had been mentioned, and will have lost 72% of its staff compared to when it was established in 2007, these are disproportionate cuts. Further cuts are anticipated in the next spending review and as a result of a zero-based budget review.
Youth Unemployment
Baroness Prosser Excerpts(12 years, 6 months ago)
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Baroness Prosser
My Lords, I, too, thank my noble friend Lord Adonis for initiating this debate. As everyone has said, he introduced it in a very interesting and exciting way. Very many young people are waiting to hear what can be done to help them get a good start to their adult lives. There have of course been a whole range of attempts by various Governments to deal with the problem of youth unemployment. This problem has been with us through good economic times and bad. I agree of course that ameliorating steps must be taken to try to use all possible levers to make sure that young people become connected to the world of work.
Many others have spoken about the various schemes currently in place and I do not want to comment too much on that aspect of the problem. I want instead to address the two overarching issues which in my view have given rise to this problem, and which have also already been touched on. First, I shall turn to the vastly changed structure of the labour market, which has gone from a manufacturing, all-hands needed economy to a service-based landscape with high skills and high rewards for the relative few at the top to the lower skilled and certainly lower paid many at the bottom. Consequent to this change comes my second point; namely, the failure of subsequent Governments to recognise that this change calls for a major overhaul to the provision of education and training.
I am obviously pleased by the increase in the number of young people moving into further education and the increase in university numbers. I am also the first person to say that an all-round education is a good thing. I agree that access to quality literature and poetry is part of the stuff of life—although, perhaps I may say, not necessarily learning poetry by rote. I welcome the proposal that primary school children should learn a foreign language. I believe that discipline, good manners and timely attendance are essential steps towards becoming a good citizen. But I also think that education has to be provided within the context of “What is it for? Where will it lead?”. How does this stage in a young person’s life help them when they move to the next stage? Why is academic education valued so much more highly than vocational training and skills?
Recent research by City and Guilds, which looked at the views of 3,000 young people aged between seven and 18, showed that the link between education and employment is central to tackling youth unemployment. Some 69% of those young people thought that maths was very important to helping them get on in life. However, the 14 to 18 year-olds said that they found maths boring and irrelevant. More than half of the 16 to 18 year-olds said, unprompted, that taught maths should be geared towards real life and set in relevant or practical scenarios. In this country, we are in dire need of employees trained in technical and scientific subjects, the basis of which is a good appreciation of maths. Here half of our young people are turned off the subject before they have even reached the age of taking their GCSEs.
In the same research, it was found that of the 64% of 14 to 18 year-olds who had received careers guidance from their teacher only 14% had found it useful. They found the most useful source of guidance was visiting an employer. However, of the 16 to 18 year-old cohort only about a quarter had had the opportunity of a workplace visit. Why is there not an organised programme of workplace visits? Work experience can be a very good thing but taster visits well before a youngster has made exam or subject choices can help to clarify what is expected and needed, not only in terms of knowledge and study but in terms of behaviour and how to dress et cetera. I am sure that many schools do good work linking up with the local business community but far too many do not. Taking away the careers advice function from schools will only make this matter worse.
In 2010, I was asked by the Recruitment & Employment Confederation to chair a task force into the issues around youth unemployment. We produced a report with a number of findings, many of which were directed towards the relationship between education providers and employers. Subsequently, more than 100 employers have signed the REC charter, which commits them inter alia to develop links with local schools and colleges, to promote apprenticeships and to participate in specific initiatives developed by, for example, the Prince's Trust or Business in the Community.
While these ideas are aimed at employers, this does not let the Government off the hook. Reducing financial support for students is hardly the right message to be sending at a time when there is a skills shortage in the labour market, which is currently being filled by better trained and better educated workers from overseas. Intensive support is required to train our young people for all levels of employment. Vocational courses have for too long been the poor relation but we also need investment in research and high-level technical skills. Fiddling about with a short-term patchwork of schemes and programmes is hardly likely to put us on a footing with our competitors, never mind help us out of this recession.
It is not even cost effective. Research by ACEVO shows that in 2012 the £4.8 billion cost of youth unemployment to the Exchequer is higher than the budget for further education for 16 to 19 year-olds. Add to that the cost to society generally of a generation of disaffected young people and this is not a good picture. On one final point, I find it strange that this debate has been designated as falling within the purview of only the DWP rather than the Department for Education or the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills. It is within those departments that the answers to this problem will be found. I hope that the debate will be brought to the attention of the relevant Ministers.