Employment: Job Creation Debate
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Baroness Sherlock
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Employment: Job Creation
Baroness Sherlock Excerpts(9 years ago)
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Lord Freud
In the past five years, 57% of new jobs went to UK nationals compared with 50% under the previous Government. One of the most dramatic figures I want to boast about is what has happened to youth employment. I have quoted again and again in this House the figure about workless youngsters not in education: it is now a million below what it was in 1997. It went right up under the previous Labour Government and is now at a low of 14.2%.
Baroness Sherlock (Lab)
My Lords, the employment rate for disabled people is now under 48%, leaving a disability gap of 30 percentage points. The Government have committed to halving that gap, which I welcome, but in the Committee on the welfare reform Bill this week there was support from every Bench of this House to require the Government in their new statutory reporting on employment specifically to report on progress on closing the disability employment gap. The Minister resisted that. Will he think again or, if not, will he tell the House why the Government are so resistant to that?
Lord Freud
This Government are going to produce a White Paper in the new year on how to support people who are disabled and pull them back into their rightful place at the economic heart of this country.