Youth Unemployment

Lord Blunkett Excerpts

Thursday 11th September 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Sherlock (Lab)]

My Lords, the noble Lord is right to flag that youth unemployment has been rising over the last three years. It is probably worth noting that there is always a higher rate of unemployment for young people than for older age groups; they tend to have higher rates of unemployment mainly because they are more likely to cycle in and out of the labour market around the age that they start into work. However, the trend is one that we need to watch, and he is right to raise it.

The noble Lord is also right to raise the fiscal context, but the real reason that I want to do something about this is not just for my colleague, the Chancellor of the Exchequer—keen though she would be—but because we do not want any young person to leave school and not have the opportunity to learn more or to work. We have tried various things in different Governments, and we have now decided not to leave anyone behind. We are developing a new youth guarantee with a clear commitment that every young person should be earning or learning. We have people in different parts of the country trying to work out what works in their locality, for their young people and their employers. We are transforming apprenticeships, investing in greater support for young people and making sure we identify those young people who are at risk. Frankly, if they are not in education, employment or training at 18 or 19, that is a real risk for the future. We need to find them and support them.

[Lord Blunkett (Lab)]

My Lords, I pay tribute to my noble friend’s energy, commitment and drive on this issue. Would she talk to her new Secretary of State, whose team might then talk to the Chancellor, about examining how we might learn from the New Deal for Young People, which was introduced in 1998? The number of young people aged 16 to 24 who are out of everything is not just a personal and moral challenge but a societal and economic disaster. We absolutely need to make this one of the main pillars of this Government’s policy in the next three years.

[Baroness Sherlock (Lab)]

I thank my noble friend and pay tribute to him. He was a reforming Minister in the last Labour Government and did lots of work in this area. I am conscious that I learned a lot from him in those days. He is absolutely right that this is both a scandal and a challenge for the economy.

One of the difficulties we have nowadays is trying to work out how we reach young people if they are not engaged in society. I was talking to an experienced youth worker recently, who said that she is worried about the range of young people who are simply off-grid. It is not just that we are not aware of them: they are not on benefits or claiming anything; they are simply disappearing. Part of our job is to go out there and find out where they are. For example, trailblazers in different parts of the country are looking at how you track down young people who are not on our radar and then support them, draw them in and engage them in their spaces.

We are trying to find more creative ways to do this. I have talked to young people for whom school just did not work—they failed or were failed by school. But it is possible that they will engage in different kinds of apprenticeships or skills-based training, and that work experience might draw them back in. Our job is to find these young people, work out what will make the difference for them individually and give it to them.

Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Lord Blunkett Excerpts

Wednesday 10th September 2025 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Blunkett]

435: After Clause 44, insert the following new Clause—
“School inspections: multi-academy trustsIn section 5(2)(d) of the Education Act 2005, after “schools”, insert “and trusts””

[Lord Blunkett (Lab)]

In moving Amendment 435, I am grateful for the support of my noble friends and of the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan of Cotes, who quite rightly drew attention in the last debate to anomalies that have arisen over the years that I hope we will be able to put right. Mine is a simple amendment that says that multi-academy trusts should be subject to the same inspection regime as schools and local authority children’s services. I shall be as brief as possible, otherwise the Committee will be sitting very late.

I want to take the Committee back to 1988, when the noble Lord, Lord Baker, brought forward the legislation which started the process of what was called local management of schools. Some local education authorities had had the wisdom to devolve much greater powers to heads and to free up schools to innovate before that date, but the Bill, along with bringing in the national curriculum, reinforced the importance of schools managing schools. The head was responsible for what took place in a school and could be held to account. Local management of schools was about accountability and where the buck stopped on standards being dramatically improved, with the support at the time of the better local authorities.

The noble Baroness, Lady Morris, will remember that, when we were in the department from 1997 to 2001, we spent a lot of time trying to unlock the worst of local authorities’ iron grip on the throats of head teachers who were trying to get on with the job and innovate. Back in the 1980s, there had been experiments in a number of areas of local governance. Governing bodies were being brought into being and parents and communities were being engaged much more with their school.

Many changes have taken place since. From 2001, when I was pleased and proud to be the Education and Employment Secretary, we started the process of academisation. It followed grant-maintained schools, foundation schools and the greater freedom that schools had already acquired over the previous decade, and was intended to have a laser focus on improving standards and changing the lives of children in many schools which had simply let them down. That process had a life of its own over the subsequent decade and led, in 2010, to a massive acceleration of separate free- standing academies, supported by additional resources.

I am going back on the history because what then occurred was what the chief inspector at the time described as atomisation—a fragmentation of the system. Quite rightly, the noble Lord, Lord Gove, as he is now, recognised that this was not tenable and that we were ending up with flowers that were sometimes blooming but quite a lot that needed watering and nurturing.

The growth of multi-academy trusts was a natural reversion to bringing schools together and to having a superstructure that could provide support. That support has grown. Some of the best multi-academy trusts, some of which have been supported and nurtured by Members of this House, have shown precisely what can be done with the right balance of support and guidance and sometimes rigorous intervention with the local management of schools—head teachers being given their head and carrying true responsibility. Other multi-academy trusts have had a different approach, and the split between the founding board and the trust board can have interesting outcomes.

Amendment 435 is very simple. If, as is quite right, we inspect local authority children’s services and individual schools, we should also inspect multi-academy trusts. That is not a threat—it is a promise. It will ensure that the best is highlighted and that, where there are problems, they are rooted out. If a multi-academy trust is in charge of overall funding and HR, and, as in many cases, has taken to itself the power of appointments, as well as being in charge of how the curriculum is developed and applied, all those elements are about the delivery of standards for children. Not to inspect makes no sense at all.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Blunkett (Lab)]

I am very grateful for the final intervention by the noble Baroness opposite. Collective memory has always been a problem in government. It is nice to know that there is something on a shelf somewhere, although we have had rather an experience over the last 14 months of sometimes pulling the wrong one off it.

I thank the Minister for her reply. It is perfectly feasible to square this circle. It is perfectly feasible to put in the Bill an enabling clause that allows the department, through the White Paper and beyond, to bring forward implementation. As has been suggested by a number of noble Lords, one can then sophisticate it with guidance or, if it requires it, regulation. We have got into a mindset of having to put things in the order that they were first thought of. It is difficult to get legislative approval within government. We used sometimes to manage it, not least when my noble friends Lady Blackstone and Lord Rooker were my representatives in this House, because they used to cause absolute sodding havoc. Normally they were right.

One time, I had the Chancellor of the Exchequer on the phone demanding the resignation of my noble friend Lord Rooker for something that he had said in the House. I said, “Well, there is one surefire way of making sure that everybody knows about it, Gordon, and that is to fire him”. On that note, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

[Lord Baker of Dorking (Con)]

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, for getting such a speedy response from the Minister. It is almost unknown. It gives me the opportunity to congratulate the Minister on being reappointed as the Minister for Skills. Not only that but she has it in two departments—the DWP and education. She is the most powerful Minister for Skills that has ever been appointed. I think she will make the most of it. This change is one of the most significant of the reshuffle.

Household Support Fund

Lord Blunkett Excerpts

Tuesday 30th January 2024 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)]

To date, over £2 billion-worth of support has been allocated to local authorities in England via the household support fund to support those most in need. As I said, it is up to local councils to decide how it is disbursed. Local authorities in England are funded through the finance settlement to deliver local welfare provision.

[Lord Blunkett (Lab)]

My Lords, it would be deception of the worst order if the Government were to announce, as they have over the last few days, a £600 million uplift to upper-tier local authorities only then, a few days later, to pull the plug on £2 billion. The £10 million that goes to Sheffield has been crucial in maintaining the well-being of thousands of children. I appeal to the Minister to go back to his colleagues and ensure that there is no duplicity and that the most vulnerable can continue to get help from 1 April.

[Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)]

I hope I can provide some further reassurance to the House and to the noble Lord. He will know that the Government have announced initial measures for local authorities in England worth £600 million. This includes £500 million for new funding for councils with responsibility for adult and children’s social care, distributed through the social care grant.

Health: Migraines

Lord Blunkett Excerpts

Tuesday 24th October 2023 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)]

I might be able to help the noble Baroness in some way. It is estimated that 190,000 migraine attacks occur every day in the UK. Over three-quarters of people who get migraine have at least one attack each month. Chronic migraine—it is a justified question—when a person gets a headache on 15 or more days a month, eight of them migraine, is less common but affects about two in 100 people.

[Lord Blunkett (Lab)]

My Lords, I have a non-pecuniary interest to declare. All this discussion on the advice that employers clearly need surely leads us to believe that we need a national occupational health programme, which could save tens of billions of pounds. Does the Minister agree?

[Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)]

I will certainly reflect upon that and take it away, but I have given some idea as to the work we are doing with employers and—I say again—it is an incredibly important issue for all employers, particularly small businesses. There are 5.4 million or so of those in this country, for which there is little access to occupational health—something I could talk about another time—where advice needed for employees who suffer is better given.

Mesothelioma Lump Sum Payments (Conditions and Amounts) (Amendment) Regulations 2021

Lord Blunkett Excerpts

Wednesday 10th February 2021 Grand Committee

[Lord Blunkett (Lab)]

My Lords, I chose to join the Grand Committee for the consideration of these regulations this afternoon in part because of the experience of friends and family members older than myself who have suffered from mesothelioma and pneumoconiosis. I also pay tribute to those who campaigned so hard for the 1979 Act and those who campaigned for the changes in 2008, including the deputy leader of Sheffield City Council, Councillor Terry Fox, who was president of the National Association of Colliery Overmen, Deputies and Shotfirers and led a very successful campaign leading up to the 2008 changes.

I really respect the Minister and appreciate her explanation of what has taken place and the Government’s reaction in relation to the Covid-19 pandemic. As she said at the end of her contribution, it is hard to get across to people who have not met anyone who has suffered from mesothelioma or pneumoconiosis just what a tragedy it is for the individual and their family, and the debilitating impact that these diseases have on the longevity, mobility and life chances of those suffering. It was not simply something that happened in the coal and steel industries. I remember, as a young man, that with Turner and Newall in Leeds, it took great campaigners, media appreciation and investigation to bring about change. That was also true of the Sheffield occupational health project, which today works in GP surgeries and does a first-rate job on a shoestring to ensure that it can work with primary care to help those who have those diseases. As the Minister spelled out, it also helps those unable to identify their specific employment as the cause, mainly because the workplace no longer exists, but for whom it is absolutely clear that their illness was associated with employment and that those living around that employment have been affected. That was why the 2008 change came in.

I am sorry that we did not build in automatic uprating in 1979 and 2008, but I am very glad that the Government have, like previous Governments, taken this on board. It is appreciated on behalf of all those currently suffering and those still being identified that the Government, despite disagreements elsewhere over welfare payments, have recognised the enormity of what people are suffering and stepped up to the plate.

Social Security (Up-rating of Benefits) Bill

Lord Blunkett Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 13th October 2020 Grand Committee

[Lord Blunkett (Lab)]

My Lords, first, I welcome the two newly ennobled Peers to our proceedings in this Room and congratulate them in advance on their maiden speeches. This is a unique occasion for newly ennobled Members of the House to make their maiden speeches in these newly formed proceedings, but it will be something to tell their grandchildren or others who fit into that category.

I am walking on very thin ice, and indeed not just on eggshells but on broken glass in terms of the short contribution I wish to make. Twenty years ago, I was in some conflict with the then Chancellor because I backed the stalwart but ageing battleship that was Barbara Castle and my good friend, the late Rodney Bickerstaffe, then the general secretary of Unison, in publicly advocating the double lock on the state pension, at a time when I know noble Lords will remember the Government were stumbling into a 75 pence a week increase and all the controversy around that. Here we are, some 20 years later with a triple lock, but in very different circumstances. Twenty years ago, pensioner poverty was rife, which is why we are talking about pension credit. It was a really big challenge to ensure that those who had given their lives during the war were not disadvantaged, and major steps were taken to put that right.

However, here we are, on the back of numerous research projects, including by the Resolution Foundation, and the work of the noble Lord, Lord Willetts, who has done so much on this, facing a very different situation. I realise that while we must pass this legislation as quickly as possible—as we would expect to do, because we are only putting right an expectation and implementing what was in fact in the Government’s manifesto—we will have to reassess how we deal with this in the future.

I deferred my retirement pension, but I now take it. For Members who have other ways of supplementing their pensions and are in a comfortable position, if not rich, it is very difficult to address these issues without being accused of hypocrisy. But the situation in relation to the young versus the old in terms of the balance between the generations has changed dramatically. It is difficult to talk about this. I was on the BBC “Politics Live” programme with Professor Karol Sikora at the beginning of September. He made remarks along the lines I have just touched on in respect of what is happening to young people. An avalanche of abuse was poured on his head, but because, thank God, I do not do social media, it took a bit of time for it to reach me. However, people did, some of them not realising that I am in the same age bracket as those who were writing to me.

I understand this because there are people who are still extremely badly off in retirement, but there are real challenges. Today we learn that out of the half a million people who have, we have been notified, lost their jobs through to August, three out of five were between the ages of 16 and 24. Older people have at least been protected to some extent from 10 years of austerity by other benefits, but not younger people. While we must go ahead with this legislation, all major parties—difficult as it is—will have to reassess their policies in relation to fairness between and within the generations. That will have to be done sooner or later, not least because of the enormity of the increase in debt and the investment that have been needed because of Covid.

I know what the politics are; I am not foolish. Older people vote in substantial numbers compared to the young. The answer is that young people need to learn the bitter lesson that, if they do not vote, they pass power to others who do.

Pension Schemes Bill [HL]

Lord Blunkett Excerpts

Report stage & Report stage (Hansard) & Report stage (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 30th June 2020 Lords Chamber

Therefore, whether or not the amendment is worded correctly—the concept of “fairness” is of course open to interpretation—we need to ensure that there is some kind of risk adjustment or long-term margin taken from those who wish to become non-members of a scheme, so that there is a buffer against future bad markets or unexpected changes in the parameters on which pension values are currently based for these schemes to become more sustainable in the long term. I look forward to my noble friend’s response and, possibly, reassurance.

[Lord Blunkett (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I will not detain the House for very long. I draw attention to the interchange and interface between the insolvency legislation that has now passed into law, on which I spoke a short time ago, and this Bill. The reason for that is that we are at a moment of the trigger events being more likely than in our recent history. The noble Baroness, Lady Altmann, referred to the pension freedoms. It struck me as I was listening to the debate today how relevant that is because five years ago the then Chancellor decided to provide a stimulus to the economy as PPI out-payments were drawing to a close, and he did so with an understanding that that would not destroy the pension entitlement or, as provided in Amendment 32, the balance of fairness between generations.

I am supporting both Amendment 8, moved extremely well by my noble friend Lady Drake, and Amendment 32. Anything that puts people and the wider scheme at risk, including these CMP schemes, is dangerous not only to the individuals concerned but in the dislocation of something broader—that is, the commitment that I commenced when my noble friend Lady Drake, along with John Hills and the chair of the commission back in 2005, Adair Turner—the noble Lord, Lord Turner—proposed auto-enrolment.

We are at a moment when, following the withdrawal of the furlough schemes, we face enormous unemployment, great insecurity and risk. At this moment we need to be able to secure not just the present but the future, and that future has to be about those young people contributing, as has already been said in relation to Amendment 32, and the danger that those who find themselves in temporary need of funding will withdraw funds at a moment that is deeply inappropriate for the viability of the programme as a whole. I hope that the Minister will respond positively and, if not, that we will press Amendment 32 to a vote.

[Baroness Janke [V]]

My Lords, I support Amendment 8 but I will address my remarks to Amendment 32. The amendment seeks to ensure fairness for all members of CDC schemes, especially between different generations who may stand to gain or lose from future circumstances, as noble Lords have already referred to.

In Committee we debated this issue at length and a number of issues emerged. The Bill states that the scheme provides for intergenerational fairness among its members, specifically in connection with the amount of benefits paid to pensioners, proposed adjustments to annual benefits and cash-equivalent values provided to members wishing to transfer out of the scheme. A requirement of collective money purchase schemes requires outperformance or underperformance to be reflected in the benefits paid to all members. However, there is usually a reluctance to deliver pension cuts, as in the Netherlands example that the noble Lord, Lord Vaux, described in Committee: when the Government intervened temporarily to avoid a cut in pensions, younger members of the scheme lost out as pensions were kept higher than the scheme could afford.

CDC schemes are required to agree a pension target rather than a firm outcome, and the expectation of pensioners may be different in the event of the underperformance of investments over time. So unless pensions were to be cut, which is a decision that is largely avoided, younger members of the scheme could lose out in the interests of existing pensioners. In the instance of a large number of people choosing to cash in their pensions, as others have said, there is a risk to new and younger entrants to the scheme, particularly if the value of the scheme is significantly reduced.

Our Amendment 32 seeks to press the Government into being more explicit and much clearer in their commitment to fairness across the board to all members of the scheme by requiring the trustees to make an assessment of the fairness of the scheme. The amendment addresses the interests of transparency and fairness and the welfare of all members of the scheme, and I support them.

Automatic Enrolment (Offshore Employment) (Amendment) Order 2020

Lord Blunkett Excerpts

Tuesday 19th May 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Blunkett (Lab)]

My Lords, as my Braille watch does not have the facility of timing my speech down to the half minute, I shall be as brief as possible. I welcome these instruments, not least for the signal they send in terms of the continuing commitment to auto-enrolment. My noble friend Lady Drake may not remember that, along with John Hills and the chair of the commission, Adair Turner, back in 2005 she presented the initial findings, and my job was to persuade Tony Blair and Gordon Brown that auto-enrolment was the kind of long-term policy that gives Government a good name rather than a bad one. I was particularly pleased that, after the passage of the 2008 Act, although it took an extremely long time, the coalition Government were then able to pick this up and continue with it. That is why it is important to pick up on the points made by the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, who ingeniously managed to bring in the important issue of people working in the voluntary, not-for-profit and charitable sectors that will apply more broadly in terms of the impact of Covid-19 on a much wider group of sectors than the ones we are dealing with today. I want also to reinforce the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Altmann—I seem to be supporting Conservative and well as Labour Peers today—about the anomalies that exist.

However, my main point is in the years ahead, while we protect the state pensions of people who are unemployed and moving in and out of work, it is clear that auto-enrolment will be a crucial part of maintaining income for the future, and therefore we need to find ingenious ways of ensuring that that entitlement will continue, as very large numbers of people move from furlough into unemployment, perhaps on a long-term basis.

Improving Lives: Green Paper

Lord Blunkett Excerpts

Monday 31st October 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Freud]

It is clear that many people who happen to have a disability have immense talents and valuable skills, which employers should want to tap; they will miss out if they do not. We already offer some support—for instance, Access to Work—and we are increasing that spending. The consultation will ask employers what they need from government to help them recruit and train disabled people.

[Lord Blunkett (Lab)]

My Lords, it would be unfair to use the old joke, “This is déjà vu all over again”, because this is a welcome initiative. I have just two quick points to make. The Minister knows a great deal about this. Perhaps he will accept that trashing the past rather than learning from it is not helpful. This is not an entirely new era. In 2005, as he well knows, the Department of Health and the Department for Work and Pensions jointly appointed Professor Carol Black. All the things that came out in the report he has mentioned flowed from that initiative. While it takes a great deal of time to implement good policy, as we are all painfully aware, there has been a great deal of it; for instance, the Employers Network for Equality & Inclusion has 2,500 employers already engaged. A new business leaders’ group is not required. What is required is to build on what is there, to build on the experience of the pathways and the talking therapies, and to ensure that what we all say—and we do all say it—about joined-up policy is put into practice.

[Lord Freud]

My right honourable friend in the other place, the Secretary of State, took some pleasure in quoting James Purnell from 2008 about the objectives here, illustrating that they are the same. We must acknowledge the continuity there has been in this difficult area and, in particular, give thanks to Dame Carol Black, who I have worked with now for many years and who has done an extraordinary job in trying to get these two networks together. We are building on many years of work but, like everyone else, I acknowledge that it is hard pounding—it takes a long time to get this right.

Housing: Under-occupancy

Lord Blunkett Excerpts

Monday 17th October 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Blunkett (Lab)]

My Lords, the problem with the previous question is that the bedroom tax does not apply to the retired. It is actually the retired—well represented in your Lordships’ House—who have more accommodation available than younger people bringing up families, where their home should be their castle. Does the Minister concur that, if we were looking in that area, it would be an incentive to older people to downsize, not younger people with families?

[Lord Freud]

The policy is clearly directed at people who have a spare room. These tend not to be people with families; in many cases, they are empty nesters. They would be a typical group—people who have had a larger place but some of the people living in it have then moved on and they now have spare rooms. There is a point in time at which one should address the issue to get the downsizing. This policy looks to make sure that that time is during working age and not later.