EU-Switzerland Agreement Opt-in Decision
Lord Grayling Excerpts(12 years, 10 months ago)
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The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Chris Grayling)
The Government are committed to the free movement of workers within the European economic area and Switzerland, and also to protecting the sustainability and affordability of our welfare systems. As part of that commitment we want to ensure that non-active migrants from third countries outside the EU cannot gain access to welfare benefits if they have never worked or paid contributions in the United Kingdom.
The present decision replaced a Council decision of 6 December 2010, which cited the, in our view, correct legal base of article 79(2)(b) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU) which allows the EU to adopt measures concerning the free movement rights (in this case social security rights) of third country nationals. As article 79(2)(b) lies within title V of part III of TFEU, the Government considered whether it wanted to opt into the measures and we concluded that we did not. The content of the revised decision was identical to that of December 2010, but the legal base was changed to article 48 TFEU, on social security coordination for migrant workers in the EU.
A similar situation arose earlier in 2011 with proposals to amend the social security provisions of the analogous EEA agreement. Then, as now, we took the view that these proposals would have the effect of extending social security co-ordination rights to non-active persons moving between the EU and a third country (in this case, Switzerland); and that the revised legal base was inappropriate as it related only to free movement within the EU.
In negotiations, the UK expressed serious concerns over the legal base, particularly since there was an existing decision with identical content, and over the procedures under which the decision was being adopted. Negotiations were curtailed, and no justification was given for the change in legal base. The Council decision on the EU-Switzerland agreement was adopted in Council on 16 December 2011. The Government submitted a written minute statement setting out our objections.
In parallel with these processes, we considered across Government the options open to us, including legal action. To maintain a consistent approach in line with the action taken concerning the EEA agreement, we decided to take direct action in the European Court on the basis that the article 48 legal base is incorrect and that the Council decision is therefore invalid. In addition, we confirmed our earlier decision not to opt into the measure.
On the same day that the decision was adopted in Council, the UK lodged an application under article 263 TFEU with the European Court of Justice to annul the Council decision and a further application under article 278 TFEU to suspend the decision.
By taking legal action against the Commission in both the EEA and EU-Switzerland agreements, I believe the Government are able to underline an important point of principle concerning the interpretation of TFEU and this action demonstrates how seriously the Government take our obligation to protect our rights under the treaty.
Oral Answers to Questions
Lord Grayling Excerpts(12 years, 10 months ago)
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John Woodcock (Barrow and Furness) (Lab/Co-op)
1. For what reasons Work programme contractors are not permitted to publish their performance data.
The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Chris Grayling)
I thought that this afternoon we might have been extensively debating the benefits cap, but no Labour Members have been brave enough to raise the issue; I cannot think why.
The Department is following guidance issued by the national statistician in order to comply with the code of practice for official statistics and to protect the integrity and accuracy of data. However, we propose to allow providers to publish data that do not compromise the official statistics and will issue guidance to providers shortly.
John Woodcock
As the Minister knows, under the flexible new deal, providers were allowed to publish their data if they wanted to. If he is confident in his Work programme and knows that he has got the contracting incentives right, about which there is some doubt, why on earth is he refusing to let these providers publish their data if they want to?
Chris Grayling
It is precisely because I am keen to get information out there that we are looking at ways to ensure that that can happen, despite the rules about national statistics, which we have to obey very carefully. If the hon. Gentleman wants some statistics about employment programmes, let me share a set with him. The flexible new deal, to which he referred, cost the taxpayer £770 million and delivered 50,000 six-month job outcomes. He can do the maths on that—it amounts to approximately £14,000 per six-month job outcome. That is one failure of the welfare-to-work programmes we inherited, and that is why the welfare-to-work package that we have put together through the Work programme will be better value for the taxpayer and do a better job for the unemployed.
Mr Julian Brazier (Canterbury) (Con)
Following that robust answer, does my right hon. Friend agree that when we are able to publish these data, they are likely to show the success of putting work out to contract when we see that organisations such as the Shaw Trust are much better at providing work for disabled people than the work done in-house by the Benefits Agency?
Chris Grayling
When I visit Work programme providers —I have now visited most of them—I certainly find a great deal of enthusiasm, a sense of purpose and successful progress. I hope that that will show through in the official statistics when the time arises. I am not in the business of burying good news, and I very much hope that we will be getting the good news about the Work programme out there as soon as we possibly can.
Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)
I welcome the U-turn on the publication of data that the Minister has just announced. The White Paper, “Open Public Services”, which was published only last summer, included the following commitment:
“Providers of public services from all sectors will need to publish information on performance”.
So why did he write into the Work programme contract a ban on the publication of performance data by those providers?
Chris Grayling
As we can all see, one of the challenges that Labour Members face at the moment is that they are all over the place on policy. On Friday, they were attacking me for allegedly misusing statistics; today they are asking why I am not going round the rules set out for us by the Office for National Statistics. They need to make up their minds about what they really stand for, because at the moment they have no idea.
Stephen Timms
The Minister has signally failed to answer the question. We know that he did not ask the UK Statistics Authority, whose rules he regularly quotes, before he imposed this absurd ban. I welcome the fact that he has finally announced a climbdown today, but he cannot blame anyone for asking him what he was trying to hide.
Chris Grayling
I have absolutely nothing to hide. I have to say to the right hon. Gentleman, as I have been saying to him for weeks, that I am not in the business of burying bad news. None the less, the statisticians expect us to make sure that we have robust and clear statistics before we publish them. As the Work programme has been going for only six months, and we have barely started to make payments for providers’ success in getting people into work, he is, I am afraid, not portraying the reality of the situation. I am glad that he is pleased that we are going to try to get the good news out there as quickly as possible, but we have to stick by the rules.
Charlie Elphicke (Dover) (Con)
Is not the key point that statistics must be first approved by the UK Statistics Authority? Will Ministers ensure that when statistics are available, the success of the benefits cap is also published, with the approval of the UK Statistics Authority?
Chris Grayling
I will absolutely do that because, as my hon. Friend knows, we are all about trying to help people out of poverty by getting them back into work. The benefits cap is one part of a portfolio of policies—including universal credit, the Work programme and the migration of people off incapacity benefit—that will deliver the kind of change to our welfare state that we so desperately need and was so desperately lacking in 13 years under Labour.
Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)
The Minister will be aware that it is expected that the number of claimants on employment and support allowance who are routed to the Work programme will be about 150,000 lower than was expected when the contracts were let. What assessment has he made of the impact on their viability?
Chris Grayling
Overall, as the hon. Lady will have seen from the figures that we published before Christmas about expected numbers in the Work programme, we are likely to see more people in the harder-to-help groups go into the programme than was previously expected. However, she will also have seen from the previous sets of statistics on ESA that we have a larger than expected support group, which is partly because of policy changes that we have made in areas such as cancer, addiction and mental health in which we are trying to provide better long-term protection for people who are genuinely vulnerable.
Nadine Dorries (Mid Bedfordshire) (Con)
2. What steps he took to consult disabled people and representative organisations on the development of the personal independence payment.
David Rutley (Macclesfield) (Con)
8. What steps he has taken to reduce the level of health and safety regulation affecting business.
The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Chris Grayling)
Britain has the best record in Europe for the prevention of death and serious injury in the workplace. We should be proud of that, and we will seek to retain it under the Government. We also have one of the worst records in Europe for unnecessary health and safety red tape. The Löfstedt report, which we published in November, recommends significant changes to our regulatory regime. We accepted the recommendations and, with other planned changes, we aim to reduce the total number of health and safety regulations by 50% by 2014.
Jessica Lee
My right hon. Friend referred to the Löfstedt review. Does he agree that, by returning to a common-sense approach to health and safety legislation, businesses such as mine in Erewash can concentrate on positively contributing to the local economy rather than fearing unnecessary prosecution?
Chris Grayling
Absolutely. That is very much our hope. We have already implemented one of the key recommendations of the Löfstedt review. On 1 January, we established the first challenge panel, which will allow businesses that believe that they are on the wrong end of a wrong decision as a result of a health and safety inspection to have a quick, easy and simple way of challenging and, if necessary, overturning it.
Mr Ellwood
Is it not the case that a culture of hesitancy, leading to paranoia, developed under the previous Government? That culture saw the term “health and safety” justify bizarre decision making, such as cutting down trees in school playgrounds in case children climbed them, or council office light bulbs being replaced only by those who had completed the “how to use a six-foot ladder” course. I hope that we will see some change from this Government on those issues.
Chris Grayling
We hope that a simpler regulatory structure will contribute to that. If we take the example of schools, we have already shortened the forms that need to be filled in for a school trip from more than 120 pages to eight. I encourage every Member of the House, including you, Mr Speaker, to challenge daft health and safety decisions when you come up against them in your constituency. There is almost certainly no basis for them in health and safety law.
David Rutley
The average annual cost of compliance with health and safety regulations is more than £4,000 for businesses of fewer than 50 employees. What steps are being taken to reduce further the burden of health and safety regulations on our start-ups?
Chris Grayling
That is particularly important. One of the Löfstedt review’s key recommendations was that we should exclude altogether from health and safety rules self-employed people who do not endanger the lives of others in the course of their activities. We have accepted that recommendation and will introduce it shortly.
Andrew Miller (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)
As a member of the Löfstedt review, I can confirm that there is a recommendation that has the potential to reduce significantly the net number of regulations. Will the Minister confirm that the review actually recommends consolidating lots of statutory instruments? It would not remove health and safety regulations and, more importantly, it is not a short, quick fix, but a very long-term systematic study that is needed.
Chris Grayling
Let me pay tribute to the hon. Gentleman for his work on that committee—his contribution was much appreciated and greatly valued. He is absolutely right, though I emphasise that there is a mix. Today, we have begun a consultation on scrapping the first seven regulations that we have identified as superfluous or duplicating other provisions. As I said at the start of my remarks, our approach is not about undermining health and safety, which protects people from death and serious injury in the workplace, but about creating a streamlined and simple system that businesses can understand quickly, easily and cost effectively.
Katy Clark (North Ayrshire and Arran) (Lab)
The Minister will know that the Health and Safety Executive estimates that, each year, £22 billion is lost in the UK economy because of health and safety failures. Surely any reduction in health and safety regulation risks increasing that figure.
Chris Grayling
That does not follow because the Löfstedt review—and the hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Andrew Miller)—identified many areas in which the rules and codes of conduct are too complicated and difficult for businesses to understand. We need to get back to a simple regime that is easy to understand and does what it is supposed to do: protect people from death and serious injury in the workplace.
Sheila Gilmore (Edinburgh East) (Lab)
Given that the Löfstedt report does not say that our health and safety legislation is either excessive or wrong, will the Minister also say that and stop peddling the myths on health and safety legislation—the Löfstedt report says that they are myths—that some of his colleagues keep peddling?
Chris Grayling
The hon. Lady misunderstands the challenge we face. It is not Members of the House peddling myths; they are peddled all around the country, by local authority inspectors and middle managers in organisations who blame health and safety for things that have no basis in health and safety law. If we have a simplified regime that everyone can understand, it is much less likely that they can get away with doing that.
Stuart Andrew (Pudsey) (Con)
4. What plans he has to support residential training colleges for disabled people.
Grahame M. Morris (Easington) (Lab)
11. What recent progress he has made on the introduction of the workfare scheme.
The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Chris Grayling)
We do not operate a workfare scheme. I think the hon. Gentleman might be referring to mandatory activity; in which case, I can confirm that we have schemes in place as part of people’s job search. They include mandatory work activity and the community action programme, which is being tested as part of supporting the very long-term unemployed.
Grahame M. Morris
May I press the Minister to give a fuller answer to the question that my hon. Friend the Member for Barrow and Furness (John Woodcock) asked a little earlier? Profits at Poundland soared by 34% in 2011, with people on workfare forced to work for free in Poundland stores and being told at the beginning of their placement that there is no prospect of permanent employment, while they carry out the same duties as paid employees. Who is the real beneficiary of workfare: the taxpayer or the shareholder?
Chris Grayling
The hon. Gentleman is telling a lot of complete nonsense to the House. The reality is that Poundland is one of many major retailers taking part in our work experience scheme, which is providing young people who are out of work with their first opportunity to get into the workplace so that they can show a potential employer what they can do. More than 50% of young people who go through the scheme move quickly into employment afterwards, including, in some places, with Poundland.
Nick de Bois (Enfield North) (Con)
There is a lot of noisy criticism from those on the left about asking people to work in return for benefits. Does the Minister think that they are right?
Chris Grayling
My hon. Friend is right; those people keep harking back to the future jobs fund. Let me give the House a simple comparison. The future jobs fund resulted in about half the participants getting into work, at a cost of between £5,000 and £6,000 per placement. The work experience scheme is resulting in more than half the participants coming off benefit and going into work at a cost of about £300 per placement. Which one do you think is better value for the taxpayer, Mr Speaker?
Mr David Hamilton (Midlothian) (Lab)
12. What estimate he has made of the number of children who will be living in poverty in 2015.
Mr Marcus Jones (Nuneaton) (Con)
16. What recent progress he has made on the youth contract.
The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Chris Grayling)
Since the launch of the youth contract, we have been engaging with employers, providers and stakeholders to give them an active role in shaping the delivery of the new offer. As a result, employers are now starting to sign up to support the delivery of the youth contract and we remain on track to implement it in April as planned. Let me pay tribute to all the employers that are currently and have committed in the future to offering places in our work experience programme and in sector-based work academies and to offering in other ways to support what we are trying to achieve.
Mr Jones
I thank the Minister for his response. I welcome the youth contract and I am sure it will help many of our young people into employment, but having spoken recently to a number of local business people, particularly from small businesses, I have concerns about the general level of awareness of the policy. Will my right hon. Friend assure me that he is doing all he can to raise awareness of this crucial policy with employers?
Chris Grayling
I can indeed. I met representatives of the major business representative groups a few weeks ago. Communicating with individual businesses is certainly a challenge but we aim to do everything we can to ensure that employers are taking up the wage subsidies available from April. It is worth noting that later this evening we will debate the Opposition’s plans to create 100,000 supported jobs, but that through the wage subsidies in the youth contract we are offering a similar opportunity to 170,000 young people.
Jack Lopresti (Filton and Bradley Stoke) (Con)
17. What progress he has made in assisting members of troubled families into employment through the use of payment-by-results programmes.
The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Chris Grayling)
We launched the programme before Christmas, funded by European social fund money. This is the second major foray that this Government have made into payment by results, and I am confident that the payment-by-results approach, combined with the support that is available to those families if they move into the Work programme, will provide a transformational level of support in the lives of some of our most challenged families.
Jack Lopresti
I thank my right hon. Friend for his answer. Given that past Governments have not had great success at helping certain families get back into work, why does he think his approach will be more successful?
Chris Grayling
The big difference is that we are adopting the payment-by-results approach. The organisations taking part in the programme can be paid only at certain points—first, when they agree an action plan with one of the individuals in a problem household; secondly when they deliver that action plan, which might mean the person completing a training course or something similar; and thirdly when that person gets into employment. The taxpayer does not pay the bill unless that happens, and that is a much better deal than ever happened under the previous Government.
Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)
In Bristol, we had the pilots for family intervention projects that involved working with families who had a multitude of problems to tackle some of these issues. Does the Minister accept that this is not just about working through one Department such as his own? Other Departments such as the Department of Health and the Department for Education, as well as drugs funding, will need to be supported if we are to succeed in tackling these problems.
Chris Grayling
I absolutely do that. Two points regarding the contracting of this support are crucial to what the hon. Lady says. The first is that referrals come from local authorities so that they know they are taking people from their problem family register and are not duplicating effort. Secondly, the contracting was based very much around the effectiveness of the firms in the bidding process at showing they could form the kind of partnerships that she rightly says are so important.
Mr Andrew Turner (Isle of Wight) (Con)
T4. Will my right hon. Friend tell me what the Government are doing about migrants who live in the UK and claim benefits without working or paying tax? Will the Government consider recording the nationality of benefit claimants?
The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Chris Grayling)
I can confirm that we will record the nationality of benefit claimants when universal credit is introduced in 2013. I also confirm to my hon. Friend that where we have identified people who have a question mark over their benefits and immigration status, investigations are already under way. For 27% of the people whom we looked at in our data matching process, we are not yet able to make a match between benefit claimant status and immigration status. We will continue to do detailed work to make sure that there is not a hidden problem, left behind by the previous Government, relating to benefit tourism and inappropriate claims.
Hugh Bayley (York Central) (Lab)
T2. The benefits bill this year will be some £15 billion higher than in the last year of the Labour Government, and that costs about £600 per family per year. What will the Government do to cut unemployment, which is what is pushing up the benefits bill so fast?
Chris Grayling
Of course, we will debate this again tonight, but as I keep saying to the House, we will sort out the problems in our public finances to deliver stability in our economy. We will deliver the best possible support to business through the various measures that we have introduced, including enterprise zones and changes to the tax system. Through the Work programme, our work experience scheme, and the youth contract, we will deliver the best possible support to get the unemployed back into the workplace.
Mr Rob Wilson (Reading East) (Con)
T9. My constituent, Dr Christine Davies, has contacted me with examples exposing the unfairness of Child Support Agency arrangements, which often fail to take into account the living costs of the non-resident parent. These are parents who are trying to engage with their children and do the right thing, but who are left to live on as little as £30 a week. What are Ministers doing to deal with this unfairness?
Katy Clark (North Ayrshire and Arran) (Lab)
T7. The disability advocacy group Black Triangle has said that 11 disabled people have committed suicide in circumstances in which the coroner said that it was as a result of assessments as part of the work capability assessment. Is that figure right? Can the Minister advise whether he has looked into what legal liability the Government may have and, in particular, whether there is exposure under the corporate manslaughter legislation?
Chris Grayling
It is always a matter of regret when any person on benefits or indeed any person at all commits suicide. We always look carefully at reports that suggest any link between anything we do and people finding themselves in such a position. Let us be clear: the principle of trying to help back into work people who have been on benefits long-term is very important in supporting people who have mental health problems. If we do not reassess people, we will never be able to identify those who can benefit from that help.
Margot James (Stourbridge) (Con)
Average earnings in my constituency, Stourbridge, are £23,700 a year, on which there is a tax liability of some £5,000. Does my right hon. Friend agree that to oppose or to equivocate on the policy of a cap on benefits is an outrageous insult to all hard-working people in this country?
Welfare Reform Bill
Lord Grayling Excerpts(12 years, 10 months ago)
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The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Chris Grayling)
The Department for Work and Pensions has obtained approval for an advance, prior to Royal Assent, from the Contingency Fund of £1,000,000 . The funding will allow for the development of the IT changes required to introduce new benefit fraud and claimant error sanctions.
A tougher fraud and error regime was set out in the “Tackling fraud and error in the benefit and tax credit systems” strategy published in October 2010 and changes to sanctions and penalties are included in the Welfare Reform Bill. They provide for the introduction of a civil penalty for claimant error and strengthen sanctions for benefit fraudsters. To enable their introduction changes to the Departments’ IT systems will be required. The contingency advance will enable the IT provider to begin work in January 2012 giving them sufficient lead in time to commence changes in 2012.
The advance from the Contingency Fund will allow essential work to commence on the detailed process design and IT changes.
Parliamentary approval for resources and capital off 1,000,000 for this new service has already been sought in the main estimate for the Department for Work and Pensions, subject to the passage of the Welfare Reform Bill. Pending approval of that Bill, urgent expenditure estimated at off 1,000,000 will be met by a repayable cash advance from the Contingencies Fund.
Welfare Reform Bill
Lord Grayling Excerpts(12 years, 10 months ago)
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The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Chris Grayling)
On 22 December 2011 the Scottish Parliament voted on a legislative consent motion to the Welfare Reform Bill which is currently at Report stage in the House of Lords. Although social security is a reserved matter, legislative consent is required from the devolved Administrations for a number of aspects of the Bill.
Legislative consent was given, where required, in respect of the provisions in the Bill relating to data sharing, industrial injuries disablement benefit and the Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission. However, it did not provide consent in respect of the provisions in the Bill which give Scottish Ministers the power to make consequential, supplementary, incidental or transitional provisions, by regulations, in relation to the introduction of universal credit and personal independence payment. The Scottish Government have opted to bring forward legislation in their own Parliament in due course to make the required changes.
Therefore, in order to ensure the UK Government adhere to the principles of the Sewel convention, they will bring forward amendments at Third Reading of the Welfare Reform Bill to remove the relevant provisions from the Bill.
These amendments will not affect the implementation of either universal credit or personal independence payment.
Noble Lords will be given an opportunity to consider these amendments further at Third Reading.
Welfare Reform Bill
Lord Grayling Excerpts(12 years, 10 months ago)
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The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Chris Grayling)
The Department for Work and Pensions has obtained approval for a second advance from the Contingencies Fund of £3.737 million to allow for the continuance of work related to the introduction of employment and support allowance (ESA) time-limiting and the abolition of ESA youth, including the development of IT, before Royal Assent. This is a second advance, required as there is now greater clarity around the date for Royal Assent now that the Welfare Reform Bill has reached Report stage in the Lords. In September 2011, I informed Parliament of a £2.705 million advance for the same purpose.
This second advance will allow the ESA time-limiting and abolition of youth project to continue to work to its current design and development timetable and enable continuity of third-party supplier engagement. Subject to Royal Assent, this will enable the change to be introduced from 30 April 2012. This will bring ESA more in line with other contributory benefit regimes. It will also simplify the rules governing ESA, making it easier to administer and preparing the way for the introduction of universal credit.
Parliamentary approval for resources of £3,737,000 for this new service has been sought in the main estimate 2011-12, but is subject to the approval of the Welfare Reform Bill. Pending that approval, urgent expenditure of £3,737,000 will be met by repayable cash advances from the Contingencies Fund.
European Social Fund Support for Troubled Families
Lord Grayling Excerpts(12 years, 11 months ago)
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The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Chris Grayling)
I am pleased to announce today that the Government have put in place additional support in England for troubled families and where either no one is working or there is a history of worklessness across generations.
This support, which is funded through money received by DWP in England from the European social fund, will offer these families the opportunity to engage in work related activities, address issues which are preventing them from working and enhance their chances of returning to the labour market either directly or through the Work programme. This supports the wider cross-Government agenda on troubled families led by Louise Casey, to help turn around the lives of such families.
The provision will be employment focused and tackle barriers which prevent individual family members from returning to the labour market. The provider will take a whole family approach with support being tailored to meet individual needs. Local authorities in England have a key role identifying families who are ready for this specific support and have been working with the DWP providers to enable this to happen. This joint working and engagement will be ongoing.
Unemployment
Lord Grayling Excerpts(12 years, 11 months ago)
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Mr Byrne
If the hon. Gentleman had been listening carefully, he would have heard me answer that question. The plan that my right hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh South West and I set out entailed borrowing that was £37 billion lower than that outlined by the Chancellor in his autumn statement a couple of weeks ago. That is of grave concern to the number of people who are now out of work, especially young people in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency, where long-term youth unemployment has gone up by 128% this year, which must surely concern him.
The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Chris Grayling)
Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr Byrne
I will in a moment.
Amid these difficulties, people in this country expect the Minister for work to do something about it, and I think that I speak for many Members of the House when I say that most right-thinking people in this country believe that the Government should be doing more to get people back to work.
During Work and Pensions questions a month ago I pressed the Secretary of State to tell us what exactly he is doing to get Britain back to work. A vast constellation of initiatives was set out, including work clubs, work experience, apprenticeship offers, sector-based work academies, the innovation fund, the European social fund, the skills offer, the access to apprenticeships programme, Work Together, the Work programme, Work Choice and mandatory work activity. Listening to that list, I became slightly puzzled. With such sweat being worked up at the Department for unemployment, surely we could expect the country’s unemployed to be positively flowing back into jobs. Members can imagine my surprise when I saw the Office for Budget Responsibility’s forecast that, amid that blizzard of initiatives, unemployment is forecast to go up. How can that be?
We asked the Secretary of State to tell us just how many jobs have been created by this glorious expenditure of energy at his Department. This is what we were told in a written answer in Hansard. On Work Choice, no statistics will be available until spring 2012. On mandatory work activity, no statistics will be available until February 2012. On work clubs,
“the data requested are… not available.”
On work experience, a link was provided to a website that says nothing about jobs actually created. On apprenticeship offers, we were told:
“Information on the number of people placed in work through apprenticeship offers… is not available.”
On sector-based work academies, we were told that
“there is no national requirement for districts to record and report job outcomes achieved.”
On the skills offer, “information… is not available.” On Work Together,
“the data requested are not available.”
On the innovation fund,
“no young people have been placed into work at this point.”—[Official Report, 21 November 2011; Vol. 536, c. 122W.]
Here we are, with unemployment going through the roof and the OBR telling us that unemployment is forecast to rise again next year, but despite the multiplicity of schemes laid out by the Secretary of State, who cannot be bothered even to come along to the debate, he cannot tell us how many people are going into work as a result of the spending his Department has in place, with the exception of one programme. The one initiative—it is buried in his answer in Hansard—run by his Department that he can claim is actually creating jobs is the programme financed by the European Union. He said:
“European Social Fund support has achieved 75,671 job outcomes from July 2008 to October 2011.”—[Official Report, 21 November 2011; Vol. 536, c. 122W.]
No doubt that is why he is urging his right hon. Friend the Prime Minister to get the hell out of the EU.
Mr Byrne
That is absolutely right. The construction sector has taken an absolute hammering since this Government took office, not least because of their foolhardy decision to get rid of infrastructure projects and building projects such as Building Schools for the Future that would have equipped many of our young people with the facilities needed to deliver a world-class education in the years to come.
Chris Grayling
Will the shadow Minister be extremely careful about the information that he lays before the House? Last month, in our previous debate on this subject, I told him that Department for Work and Pensions statisticians had made a comparison between youth unemployment lasting for more than six months as of now and two years ago, and that on a like-for-like measure there has been virtually no change. He keeps insisting that there has been a substantial increase, but the civil service statisticians say that that is not correct. Will he please stop making that assertion to this House?
Mr Byrne
I know that, like me, hon. Members will have read last year’s letter to the right hon. Gentleman from Sir Michael Scholar. The letter was very assertive about the way the right hon. Gentleman had used statistics before. I am happy to lay the letter before the House for those who have not seen it. I am also happy to show the Minister figures produced by the House of Commons Library, which show that since January long-term youth unemployment has risen by over 90%. That is a badge of shame for this Government, and the Minister should be doing more to get our young people back to work.
Mr Byrne
The Minister says that this is nonsense. I am afraid that he will be giving the House the illusion that he is not taking the figures that we saw this morning seriously enough. He went on the media this morning and said that today’s figures, which show youth unemployment rising to the highest level this country has ever seen, represented a stabilisation in the labour market. When youth unemployment is going up, overall unemployment is going up, and women’s unemployment is going up, that is not stabilisation—it is a tragedy for the people those figures represent, and he should be doing more to get them back into work.
The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Chris Grayling)
I rise to take part in episode two of the debate that we began a month ago.
Let me start by saying, once again, that this Government regard unemployment among people of all ages as bad, although youth unemployment is a particular concern. All unemployment is bad and it will remain a priority for this Government to deal with the issue, to help those who are unemployed back into work, and to create an environment in which businesses are able to grow, develop and create jobs. We will do everything that we can to tackle this genuine blight, which causes concern for Members on both sides of this House. It is a problem that we must tackle.
I must also say, however, that I have seldom in this House heard such a load of complete nonsense as I have just heard from the shadow Secretary of State. He used statistics that bear no relation to the truth and he made an argument based on achievements of the previous Government that bear no relation to reality. We need to remember that it was the Labour Government who brought us youth unemployment of nearly 1 million, unemployment of 2.5 million, a deep recession, the biggest peacetime financial deficit in our history, and a Chief Secretary to the Treasury who was best known not for his taste in cappuccino or the memos that he sent to his staff, but for the note that he left behind, saying that “there’s no money left”.
Mr Byrne
The whole House is enjoying the Minister’s frivolity with such a serious issue. Will he just remind us how much extra the Chancellor proposes to borrow over and above the plans that he set out before the House last year? Is it a figure not unadjacent to £158 billion more than he forecast?
Chris Grayling
Had we followed the economic strategy of the right hon. Gentleman when he was at the Treasury and of his former boss, the former Prime Minister, not only would we be in the same kind of financial predicament today that some of our European partners are in, but we would have unemployment that is much higher today than it is.
Sheila Gilmore (Edinburgh East) (Lab)
The report issued by the Office for Budget Responsibility at the time of the autumn statement made it clear that the boom was greater and the recession sharper and deeper than had previously been thought. It also stated that the recovery in 2009 was stronger than had previously been thought, and that it was brought to an abrupt halt in the second half of 2010. Perhaps the Minister would like to reflect on what happened in 2010 to change things.
Chris Grayling
What the hon. Lady has missed is that the OBR said at the time of the autumn statement that the structural deficit—not the cyclical deficit—that we inherited from the previous Government was much worse than it had previously believed. That means that the economic legacy that we inherited was much worse than we had previously believed. It is therefore a much bigger task to overcome that and to get the economy growing again, to get jobs being created again and to get Britain moving.
Mr Sheerman
I know that the Minister cares about this issue and that we are going to have point scoring. However, a million young people and their many millions of parents and friends are waiting for something to happen. Point scoring will not help them. The shadow Secretary of State finished by remembering the 70th anniversary of the Beveridge report. He was offering an olive branch. In that spirit, why can the Government not say, “Let’s all get around a table and find something together that helps the young unemployed people in this country.”?
Chris Grayling
The hon. Gentleman will learn, if he listens to my speech, that we are already doing things. We have delivered a package of support that will make a significant difference to the lives of the unemployed.
We keep hearing about a mythical two-year gap in provision. I remind the Opposition that the programmes that we inherited from them finished only three months ago. Today’s unemployment figures cover part of the period when the previous Government’s programmes were continuing.
Let me take up the points that the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Mr Byrne) made about this morning’s unemployment figures. He questioned why I had said this morning that the labour market had showed some signs of stabilisation. Let me explain why. It is because over the past month, employment has risen by 38,000 and unemployment has risen by 16,000, a number that is considerably exceeded by the change in activity levels. The youth unemployment figure, excluding full-time students, has remained static, and the jobseeker’s allowance claimant count has risen by 3,000, whereas the total number of people who have moved off incapacity benefit and income support as a result of our welfare reforms is 10,000. Those are one month’s figures and certainly do not reflect a long-term change, but they are at least a sign of some stabilisation in the labour market. I think he would and should welcome that.
Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)
I want to return to the Minister’s point about the previous programmes having only just come to a conclusion. He surely accepts that they were running down. If someone started on a future jobs fund programme at the very end of its life, that individual would inevitably be in work for a further six months. However, that does not mean that there was not a substantial gap between the announcement of the closure of some programmes and the Government finally getting around to opening up a new programme, the youth contract, which we understand will not actually come into effect until next April.
Chris Grayling
That is simply not correct. We managed a transition strategy that kept existing programmes going until the first part of this autumn, precisely to ensure that there was not a gap in provision between what we inherited and what we were putting in place.
Oliver Heald
Does my right hon. Friend share my consternation that Opposition Front Benchers are saying that they would reintroduce the future jobs fund, given that it was an entirely public sector operation providing work placements but no permanent jobs for the future? Surely it is much better to go with the private sector option, as the Government are talking about. That is a way of providing jobs for the future.
Chris Grayling
I absolutely agree, and that is central to what we are trying to achieve. The measures that we are putting in place, which I will set out for the House in a moment, are designed to ensure that we help young people, indeed people of all ages, to move into roles in the private sector, where there is a long-term, sustained opportunity for them to build careers.
Ian Austin (Dudley North) (Lab)
Is it or is it not the case that Jaguar-Land Rover in the west midlands provided placements for young people through the future jobs fund?
Chris Grayling
The hon. Gentleman will know that in order for a private sector organisation to participate in the future jobs fund, it had to set up a special purpose vehicle to work around European Union state aid rules. The result was that virtually all placements under the future jobs fund were in the public and community sector. In putting in place additional programmes, providing apprenticeships and providing a subsidy through the youth contract, we are focusing support on roles in the private sector.
Ms Gisela Stuart
I will focus not on the over-50s, because I would have to declare an interest, but on 18 to 24-year-olds. In Birmingham, 15,600 of them are claiming jobseeker’s allowance. If the Minister is so focused on private sector job creation, will he give me one example of how he is encouraging the private sector in Birmingham to get jobs for that lost generation, rather than providing a programme of aid?
Chris Grayling
I will set out in a moment how our work experience scheme, for example, is succeeding in helping young people to move into work in the private sector.
Mr Robert Syms (Poole) (Con)
Youth unemployment started rising in 2004 and peaked at nearly 1 million in 2009. Will my right hon. Friend set out the facts about that in an honest and straightforward manner? The problems did not start in 2010.
Chris Grayling
My hon. Friend makes an important point. From listening to the Opposition, one would believe that the problem had simply emerged in the past few months. One would not believe that unemployment among young people was almost 1 million when Labour left office. Indeed, the total number of young people not in education or employment passed 1 million during the last recession, but we do not hear about that from Labour.
Mr Byrne
The Minister can try to evade the truth as much as he likes, but he cannot duck the basic fact that youth unemployment was about 14% when Labour took office. Before the recession it came down to 12%. It did go up during the recession, but it was coming down before the election. Since the election, it has gone through the roof to a record high. He simply cannot duck that truth. Why does he not get on and do something about it?
Chris Grayling
I will explain what we are planning to do, but we should remember that youth unemployment was at almost 950,000 when Labour left office, which was higher than when it took office. We are not going take lessons from Labour and its record on youth unemployment.
I wish to set out the approach that we have put in place to try to support the unemployed.
Chris Grayling
No, I am going to make some progress now.
The first priority has to be to help get business moving and growing again. That involves having a stable financial environment in which businesses are confident that this country is not going to find itself in the economic predicament that some other nations are facing. We therefore remain determined to address the deficit challenge, bring our public finances under control and send a message to the world that Britain understands the challenges that we face and is trying to do something about them. That is why we saw such a good response in the bond markets this morning to this country’s attempts to sell its bonds, and why other countries are facing difficulties. I believe that if we had not taken those measures, businesses would not be investing in this country or considering employing people here. I believe that unemployment would be higher than it is today.
We also have to take measures that, within the confines of the financial constraints upon us, do everything possible to encourage and support business. That is why my right hon. Friend the Chancellor set out in his autumn statement two weeks ago a variety of measures designed to do just that. They include investment in infrastructure; an expansion of the regional growth fund; increased capital allowances in enterprise zones; and measures to underpin bank lending to small businesses, so that they can access the finance that they need to grow. Those are essential parts of ensuring that in exceptionally difficult times, businesses at least have the best foundations that we can possibly give them to enable them to grow.
Chris Grayling
The right hon. Gentleman and other Members can read the OBR forecasts, which state that at the end of a difficult economic period unemployment will start to fall again. I remind him that we are dealing with international circumstances that the Governor of the Bank of England described as being among the most difficult in modern times, if not the most difficult.
Of course, alongside the measures that we need to take to support and encourage business growth, we need high-quality support for the unemployed to ensure that we can get them back into work as quickly as possible.
Fiona O'Donnell (East Lothian) (Lab)
The Minister has been on his feet for what feels quite a long time, and he has attacked the public sector and talked about how he will support the private sector but not once mentioned the third sector. That shows the Government’s real attitude to that sector’s role in supporting people into employment, which was what made the future jobs fund work.
Chris Grayling
If the hon. Lady will allow me, I will finish explaining what we are doing. Last night, we published figures showing that 20% of referrals taking place through the Work programme are being handled by the voluntary sector, so it is playing an extremely important part in our work. It is also helping us to deliver a number of other programmes, and it is an integral part of supporting both the short and long-term unemployed.
There are a number of elements to the package that we have put in place. The first is support for the shorter-term unemployed, with a particular focus on the young, through our work experience programme and sector-based work academies. The right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill would know, had he read the figures that we published, that the first statistics, for the period up until August, showed that more than 50% of the young people going through our work experience programme moved off benefits quickly afterwards. Indeed, we know that many of those young people are staying in employment with the employers who gave them their work experience place. The scheme is a great success, and we are doubling its size as part of the youth contract.
I should like to put it on record that I am very grateful to all the employers up and down the country, large and small, that are offering young people work experience and helping to break the vicious circle whereby people cannot get a job unless they have experience, but they cannot get experience unless they have a job. The scheme is cost-effective, costing one twentieth of what was spent on the future jobs fund for a broadly similar outcome. It is a great initiative, and I pay tribute to all the Jobcentre Plus staff who are working on it.
Mr Byrne
I am grateful to the Minister, who is characteristically generous in giving way. I assume that he refers to the statistics that were published on the Department’s website about work experience, which showed that between January and August 2011, 16,360 claimants started a “get Britain working” work experience placement. That is in the written answer that he gave me. Of those 16,000, how many have got jobs?
Chris Grayling
We know that just over 50% of those people were off benefits within a total of 12 weeks from day one of their placement. It is an eight-week placement, so the answer is, in effect, within a month of the end of the work experience period. That is the first set of figures. The right hon. Gentleman said, “No more figures till February”, and he is right. He cannot berate me for misuse of national statistics—he and I can argue about that offline sometime—and at the same time demand that I misuse them to give him more evidence now. We will publish the figures for the programme at the appropriate moment, but I am confident that they will continue to show the real difference that it is making to young people.
Brandon Lewis (Great Yarmouth) (Con)
Does the Minister agree that the best thing is the Government’s bringing everything together to ensure not just that private sector businesses grow to employ people, but that we put good, solid training, work experience and apprenticeships in place so that people can not only get into work but have sustainable long-term employment, unlike through some of the fad projects of the past?
Chris Grayling
I agree. The second part of the support that we are providing to young people—and, indeed, to older workers, for whom apprenticeships are also available—is a substantial increase in the number of apprenticeships. More than 100,000 new apprenticeships have been announced since the general election—the total across the Parliament will take apprenticeship provision far beyond where it has been previously. We believe that an apprenticeship that combines training and a real job for many young people is a better vehicle for delivering a long-term career option for them than simply putting them into a temporary six-month work experience placement at significant cost to the taxpayer, as we experienced with the future jobs fund. I accept that we do not agree on that: Labour Members believe that their approach was better. However, we believe that sustained employment in the private sector with an apprenticeship for a substantial proportion of young people is the best option. I am delighted that my hon. Friend the Minister for Further Education, Skills and Lifelong Learning, who is responsible for that, has put in so much effort and won so many extra resources for apprenticeships.
Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)
I heard what the Minister said about the programmes that he has put in place, but how can he claim that they are successful when there has been an increase in long-term youth unemployment of 88.6% and in long-term unemployment for people over 50 of 59% in my constituency in the past six months?
Chris Grayling
I make the same point to the hon. Lady that I made to the shadow Minister: I wish they would stop producing figures that are not statistically valid. The previous Government had something called the training allowance. Somebody who had been out of work for 12 months and entered the new deal programmes went for a short time on to a training allowance. That meant that their JSA claim was moved back to day one. As a result, the previous Government claimed to have abolished youth unemployment. We have stopped doing that—we do not hide the unemployed. We accept the scale of the problem and try to tackle it properly. The civil service statisticians in the Department for Work and Pensions carried out a like-for-like comparison, which shows that there is virtually no difference in youth unemployment for more than six months between today and two years ago. Opposition figures are therefore simply not accurate.
The third element of the support is through the Work programme, which began at the start of July. It has been going for five months and is the most ambitious welfare-to-work programme that the country has seen. The first signs from providers are encouraging. We will not have official statistics till next year, but there are many examples of people who have been out of work for a long time getting into work. It is a payment-by-results scheme, so providers have every incentive to use the right approach to working with people in a personalised way to deliver the right support to them individually and to match them to the right job; otherwise they will not stay there. Given that the full payment is not made until a conventional jobseeker has been in work for 18 months, there is a real incentive to ensure that it is about not just placing someone in a short-term job but building a long-term career for them.
Gordon Banks (Ochil and South Perthshire) (Lab)
The Minister wants accurate figures, so let me tell him that 130 people in my constituency in highly skilled engineering jobs are losing their jobs today because of cuts in public sector spending. It is a private sector business. Does the Minister not understand that cuts in the public sector impact on the private sector? Here in my hand is the proof to show that.
Chris Grayling
I regret every single redundancy in any sector in any part of this country. It is a terrible blow for the people concerned. I do not know about the case, but if the hon. Gentleman wants to talk to me afterwards, I will ensure that Jobcentre Plus support from a rapid response team is available to his constituents. I regret any such situation. However, we are having to get to grips with the challenges of the public sector because of the mess we were left. If we did not do that, unemployment would be higher, not lower. I stress that we will do everything we can to help the hon. Gentleman’s constituents and those elsewhere who are in a similar position. Any unemployment is too high, and we will do all we can to help tackle it.
Let me briefly consider the youth contract because questions have been asked about it. It was announced shortly after our debate a month ago and I think that it will enhance the programmes that we are already delivering. It builds on the programmes that are already in place and will involve doubling the work experience programme so that we should be able to guarantee every single young person who has been out of work for three months a work experience place. Through the Work programme, it provides a subsidy to employers to take on a young person who has been unemployed for a longer time. The CBI proposed it to us, but it is more generous than the programme that the CBI requested. The shadow Minister made the point about the previous Government’s scheme in 2009, but the difference is that we are delivering something to a template that leading business groups requested. They say that it will make a real difference to the likelihood of an employer taking on a young person. I hope and believe that will make a genuine difference.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
One of they key factors throughout the United Kingdom that perhaps the Minister has not mentioned yet is small and medium businesses. In Northern Ireland, 90% of those in employment are employed through small and medium businesses. What help does the Minister intend to give small and medium businesses to create jobs and thereby address youth unemployment?
Chris Grayling
I agree that small and medium-sized enterprises are crucial. I hope that the subsidy that is paid to employers through the youth contract will be attractive to large and small employers. We are clear that the role that small businesses play is important. Opposition Members raised issues about unemployment among the older generation and I believe that our new enterprise allowance, which is proving successful in the areas where it has been operating so far and is now available throughout the country, will provide a real route for people who want to build their own SME in future.
Mr Deputy Speaker, do not listen to what you hear from the Opposition about the Government doing nothing about unemployment. We have a comprehensive range of support, which I believe can make a real difference to the unemployed. We face huge economic challenges and some of the most difficult economic circumstances that any Government have faced. However, unemployment is and will remain a priority for the Government. We will do everything that we can to tackle it.
Chris Grayling
May I ask the right hon. Gentleman, who is a decent man, to go and look at the original quotation? If he does so, he will find that I said that the actual figure for youth unemployment was 730,000. The 1 million figure is not a true reflection of the position, because it includes a large number of full-time students looking for part-time jobs. I do not count those as being unemployed.
Stephen Timms
The Minister should take that up with the Office for National Statistics.
Last month the Government finally recognised that they had to do something and announced the youth contract, but they have not made up their minds about the details. There appears to be some haggling with the Chancellor about how it will work, and it is clear that the Government’s providers have no idea how they are supposed to be delivering it from next April. A year after the Deputy Prime Minister said—so he tells us—that something needed to be done, there has still been no action.
Although we do not know the details, we can say one thing for sure: it was folly to scrap the future jobs programme and allow youth unemployment to rocket. As was recognised by my right hon. Friend the Member for Rother Valley (Mr Barron), my hon. Friends the Members for Bolton West (Julie Hilling) and for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green), and, indeed, the hon. Member for Salisbury (John Glen), a generation of young people will bear the scars of that folly throughout their working lives because Ministers were asleep at the wheel. All along, we were assured that the solution would be in the Work programme—that it would solve all the problems—but the truth is that the programme was rushed and inadequately planned. As we pointed out at the time, there needed to be a plan for transition from the previous programmes to the new one, but there was no such plan.
So how has the Work programme fared? As my hon. Friend the Member for Stretford and Urmston pointed out, Ministers have gone to extraordinary lengths to block the publication of data about what it is achieving. I am told that officials have threatened Work programme providers that if they publish any figures, they will lose their contracts. I well understand the concern of the provider in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for East Lothian (Fiona O'Donnell) who said, “I should not show you this, because if I do I may lose the contract.”
Absurdly, the Minister of State claims that the purpose of the ban was to meet the requirements of the United Kingdom Statistics Authority. As we have been reminded, he has some form with the authority. However, its chairman wrote to me last week:
“The Statistics Authority has not been consulted on whether it would be appropriate for Work Programme providers to publish their own performance data.”
It was the Minister's decision to hush things up, not that of the United Kingdom Statistics Authority. As I told the Minister yesterday in Committee, the same organisations published their performance data in the flexible new deal, under the same United Kingdom Statistics Authority rules. They actually want to tell people what is going on and what is happening. The Minister must lift the ban.
According to the foreword to the White Paper “Open Public Services”, signed by the Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister in the days when they used to agree with each other,
“it is only by publishing data on how public services do their jobs that we can wrest power out of the hands of highly paid officials and give it back to the people.”
How true that is, but in this case the Minister is resolute: they shall not know.
As it happens, it is possible to glimpse how the programme has been going by looking at the number of people coming off benefit each month. It is no surprise that the number plummeted in May, when the flexible new deal ended. The fact that it continued to be low as the Work programme got going should also have been no surprise, because that always happens. If we compare the months after May with the same period last year, we see that poor Work programme performance resulted in an estimated 86,000 people who should have obtained work not obtaining it. That is probably a permanent unemployment rise. The damage will be with us for years.
Incidentally, to deliver that worse performance, the Government had to pay out millions. I have heard that they had to pay tens of millions in penalty charges for early termination of flexible new deal contracts. I wonder whether the Minister can tell us how many millions of pounds the Government had to pay to prevent those 86,000 people from obtaining jobs.
The Government told us that the Work programme would enlist an army of voluntary organisations to give specialist help. To begin with, we were told that 508 voluntary sector organisations would be involved. By August, the number had fallen to 423. I met a group of them last month—superb organisations such as St Mungo’s, with a great track record in helping homeless people into work. They had agreements with three different prime providers in London. How many people had been referred to them for help under the Work programme in the six months since it started? None—not a single person. Dyslexia Action has Work programme agreements in six different areas. How many referrals has it received in the six months since June? I checked with it yesterday. None; not a single person; nobody at all. These are good organisations. They tooled up and acted in good faith on what the Minister said. He led them up the garden path; he has not delivered. The Merlin standards that he said would safeguard them have proved completely worthless.
Others who have had referrals told us that relationships in the Work programme are terrible. Prime providers are not talking to sub-contractors; jobcentres are not talking to prime providers; and as was rightly said earlier, there are persistent rumours of serious financial problems ahead in the new year. Can the Minister who is winding up tell us what contingency plan he has for the eventuality of a Work programme provider failure? The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions, the right hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell has indicated that he is relaxed about that eventuality. What will the Department do if it occurs?
It is clear that we need a new approach. We have spoken about the alternative five-point plan, which my hon. Friend the Member for Swansea West (Geraint Davies) was right to underline. That, at last, would give us a chance, and it is a chance we desperately need.
Employment, Social Policy, Health and Consumer Affairs Council
Lord Grayling Excerpts(12 years, 11 months ago)
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The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Chris Grayling)
The Employment, Social Policy, Health and Consumer Affairs Council met on 1 December 2011 in Brussels. I represented the United Kingdom.
There were two negotiations at this Council. In the first negotiation, the presidency secured a general approach on a package of amendments to Regulation (EC) No 883/2004 on the co-ordination of social security systems. One of the proposals in the package would take UK income support out of the regulations. Some member states expressed concerns at some elements but accepted the package in the spirit of compromise. I intervened to stress that a broader policy debate was required at the political level on mechanisms to prevent benefit tourism.
In the second negotiation, the presidency failed to reach political agreement on extensions of the crisis derogations to the European globalisation adjustment fund. I intervened to state that in our view EGF did not add value and that we could not accept any compromise amendments. A blocking minority which included the United Kingdom held out comfortably during the vote.
There was a policy debate on the implementation of the Europe 2020 strategy in the field of employment and social policy. The debate was informed by three papers; the Commission’s annual growth survey (including the joint employment report); a set of conclusions on the European semester; and an opinion of the Social Protection Committee on the social impact of the crisis. I intervened to welcome the annual growth survey and emphasised the need for all member states to have a credible and determined approach to fiscal consolidation and, structural reform, including through deeper growth-friendly labour market reforms. I also stressed that it was vital that the EU did not take any counter-productive measures which might actually end up having the effect of reducing employment. I suggested that Ministers bring specific ideas to the February EPSCO for further discussion.
There were progress reports on three topics; minimum health and safety requirements regarding the exposure of workers to the risks arising from physical agents (electromagnetic fields); the pregnant workers directive; and the equal treatment of persons irrespective of religion or belief, disability, age or sexual orientation.
Ministers adopted three sets of Council conclusions; ageing as an opportunity for the labour market and the development of social services and community activities; the review of the implementation of the Beijing platform for action; and the follow-up of the first European semester and thematic surveillance in employment and social policies.
The Commission presented a report on the functioning of the transitional arrangements on the free movement of workers from Bulgaria and Romania.
Under any other business the presidency and Commission reported on the first annual convention of the European platform against poverty and social exclusion. The presidency provided information on the legislative proposals in the area of migration (single permit, intra-corporate transfers and seasonal workers) and reported on the informal meeting of Ministers for family and gender equality. The Commission provided an update on the review of the working time directive; the posting of workers directive; and the state of play on the European debate on women on company boards.
Welfare Reform Bill (Conditionality and Sanctions Contingency Fund Advance)
Lord Grayling Excerpts(12 years, 11 months ago)
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The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Chris Grayling)
The Department of Work and Pensions has obtained approval for an advance from the contingencies fund of £800,000 to allow for the development of IT. This amount is part of the proposed investment in conditionality and sanctions changes of £3 million agreed at the time of the spending review.
In October 2012, the conditionality and sanctions project will introduce a claimant commitment, designed to give greater clarity to claimants about the consequences of failing to comply with their job seeking or work preparation requirements. This will be underpinned by a more robust sanctions regime with tougher sanctions for repeated non-compliance, and a revised hardship regime. These changes will align current key benefits with the proposed policy for universal credit, which will simplify the migration of existing claims on to universal credit from 2013.
The advance from the Contingencies Fund will allow essential work to commence on detailed process design and IT changes, to enable the implementation of the new conditionality and sanctions regime in advance of universal credit.
Parliamentary approval for additional resource and capital of £3 million for this new service will be sought in the supplementary estimate for the Department for Work and Pensions. Pending that approval, urgent expenditure estimated at £800,000 will be met by a repayable cash advance from the Contingencies Fund.
EEA Opt-in Decision
Lord Grayling Excerpts(12 years, 11 months ago)
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The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Chris Grayling)
The Government are committed to the free movement of workers within the European economic area, and also to protecting the sustainability and affordability of our welfare systems. As part of that commitment we want to ensure that non-active migrants from outside the EU cannot gain access to welfare if they have never worked or paid contributions in the United Kingdom.
In considering proposals to amend the social security provisions of the EEA agreement, we took the view that the proposals would have the effect of extending social security co-ordination to non-active persons moving between the EU and EEA. Furthermore, the proposal was based on treaty powers for the co-ordination of social security schemes in relation to the free movement of workers within the EU (article 48 of the treaty on the functioning of the European Union), whereas the provisions related to free movement between the EU and the EEA states.
In focusing on the nature and content of the proposal rather than the cited legal base, the Government came to the conclusion that the appropriate legal base was article 79(2)(b) TFEU, which allows the EU to adopt measures concerning the free movement rights (including social security rights) of third-country nationals. Article 79(2)(b) lies within title V of part III of the TFEU, and so the Government considered whether they wanted to opt in to the measures; and we concluded that we did not want to opt in.
In negotiations we continued to argue for a change to a title V legal base, and that the UK’s position be reflected in the text, but were unsuccessful. The decision on the position to be adopted by the EU was put to the Employment, Social Policy, Health and Consumer Affairs Council in June 2011. The Government expressed our serious concerns over the legal base for the proposal, and noted our right to take further action. The Council decision was none the less adopted, and a further decision giving effect to the measures was adopted in the EEA Joint Committee on 1 July 2011.
In parallel with these processes, we considered across Government the options, including legal action, open to us and we have decided to take direct action in the European Court on the basis that the article 48 legal base is incorrect and that the Council decision is therefore invalid. That action was initiated on 16 August by submitting an application on behalf of the UK to the Court of Justice of the European Union.
I believe this action demonstrates how seriously the Government take our obligation to protect our rights under the treaty on the functioning of the European Union.