Youth Unemployment

Debate between Lord Grayling and Sarah Newton

Wednesday 9th November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

The point of the Work programme is very straightforward. We have a team of organisations throughout the country helping people to get into work. We pay them if they succeed. Fortunately, they seem to be making a good start. In due course, when I can do so, under national statistics rules, I will publish information for the benefit of the whole House. I want to expose to the whole market who is doing well and who is doing less well, so that there is competitive pressure on organisations to become the lead provider. I will publish those figures as soon as I can according to national statistics rules, and as soon as the programme has been going long enough for them to be reliable.

The third point—

[Sarah Newton (Truro and Falmouth) (Con)]

Will my right hon. Friend give way?

[Chris Grayling]

I will give way once more, and then I must make some progress and wind up my speech.

[Sarah Newton]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend, who has been very generous in giving way. Does he agree that this is all about local partnerships? Organisations such as Cornwall Works will help the 105 young people in my constituency who have been unemployed for more than six months to get back to work. Those young people will benefit from the new apprenticeships created in my constituency in the last year—more than 660. Local partnerships enable such people to find real jobs with real employers.

[Chris Grayling]

Local partnerships are immensely important, and now the Work programme providers have complete freedom to forge partnerships that will make a genuine difference.

The third element of our strategy is apprenticeships. Over the past 12 months, we have launched 100,000 new apprenticeships. I believe that more apprenticeships are now available in this country than ever before. We have many apprenticeships that are targeted at young people. The previous Government’s track record on apprenticeships was, as usual, full of rhetoric but lacking in delivery. They repeatedly made promises for an overall number of apprenticeships, and they repeatedly failed to deliver what they promised. We are hitting targets for apprenticeships. That is the first time in a long time that that has happened, and I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Minister for Further Education, Skills and Lifelong Learning for that.

Welfare Reform Bill

Debate between Lord Grayling and Sarah Newton

Monday 13th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. Some of my colleagues and I have been in the House for longer than he has—and when the Labour party was in government, I do not recall once being called in to discuss the policy-making process for one part of a piece of primary legislation. I was not asked to go in and discuss education or health options; the decisions were always just made. What is different is that we have extended the hand of involvement to the Opposition and said, “Please come and be part of the decision-making process.”

[Sarah Newton (Truro and Falmouth) (Con)]

As another new Member, I ask my right hon. Friend to cast his mind back and consider whether the right hon. Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms), when he was a Minister, ever consulted quite so extensively as this Government have with third sector organisations, charitable organisations and other organisations to inform their work in developing the benefits system.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lord Grayling and Sarah Newton

Monday 10th January 2011 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Newton (Truro and Falmouth) (Con)]

15. What progress he has made on contracting arrangements for the Work programme.

[The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Chris Grayling)]

Happy new year, Mr Speaker. We published the full invitation to tender for the Work programme shortly before Christmas. Would-be bidders have until early February to submit their bids and we remain on track to launch the Work programme in the summer.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Grayling]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. We are very clear that we want to see small local community, voluntary sector, social enterprise and private sector groups having the opportunity to work alongside major contractors in the Work programme. We have been very clear to would-be prime contractors that if they do not bring together a consortium of smaller organisations that demonstrate the breadth of skills necessary to deliver support to all the different groups that will be helped under the Work programme, they will not be successful in their bids. That is of paramount importance.

[Sarah Newton]

I very much welcome the assurances we have received from the Minister about the small-scale organisations that are being brought in to the larger contracting. What assurances can he give my constituents and others in Cornwall who benefit from EU convergence funding that the locally identified priorities under that programme and the excellent work that has been done to get hard-to-reach groups of people back into work will continue and will benefit from the Work programme?