Department for Work and Pensions: AI

Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe Excerpts

Tuesday 5th December 2023 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)]

Yes, and I can outline that a lot of very good work has been done so far. As I said earlier, the work still has to include human judgment, but AI is being used to assist with improving on repetitive processes for staff. We are introducing conversational platforms for triaging, which will lead directly to having a human face. The whole point is to speed up the process and include more human judgment in ensuring that more people get into work, and faster.

[Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe (Lab)]

Has the Minister seen the Paradot website? If not, will he look at it? Is the department examining whether the buddy concept developed there could be used in the department that he represents and in other government departments, and what the consequences of using that in government service would be?

[Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)]

I am not aware of that, but I will most certainly look at it.

Youth Unemployment

Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe Excerpts

Thursday 15th October 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)]

I will say to the right reverend Prelate that we do not underestimate the seriousness of this situation. I think that we are all mindful of the impact that it can have on the lives of all those who are affected by unemployment. On the question I have been asked about mental health, I am not sure what support, fiscally or otherwise, is available, but I shall talk to my colleagues in the Department of Health and Social Care and write to the right reverend Prelate to confirm it.

[Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, does the Minister recall the complaints that I have been making to her department about the increasingly poor performance of call centres? In conversations I have had with people working in call centres, they have said that they are very short of staff. When will the Government engage with all these call centres? They already have people there to do the training. They should get them to create the jobs that are needed so that proper performance standards are met by these companies—and if they are abroad, the work should be brought back home, which in turn will create many jobs for the young unemployed.

[Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)]

I can confirm to the noble Lord that I will go back to the department with this and speak to the Director General for Service Excellence. I also offer to meet with the noble Lord so that he can share his concerns verbally and get some answers.

Housing: Underoccupancy Charge

Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd March 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Freud]

The information on this is disseminated. When people are written to, informing them that they are subject to the removal of the spare room subsidy, the information is made available to them on that occasion. Awareness of that is growing.

[Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe (Lab)]

Given the well-known problems in housing with rentals and finding accommodation, have the Government given any thought to extending their policy on the underoccupancy charge to the private sector?

[Lord Freud]

The way that this was introduced was to replicate what happens in the private sector, where the LHA does exactly that: it provides the family with what they require. The removal of the spare room subsidy brings the same system into the social sector as was introduced into the private sector by the very party that the noble Lord sits in.

EU: Youth Unemployment (EUC Report)

Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe Excerpts

Tuesday 17th June 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe (Lab)]

My Lords, I am a member of Sub-Committee B and was, happily, very much involved in the production of the report. Like others, I express my gratitude and pay tribute to the noble Baroness, Lady O’Cathain, for her brave leadership and determination to get the facts and to stick to making recommendations, even though they may not be too popular, necessarily, with her own Government. She has certainly ploughed an individual line there, well supported by her committee. My grateful thanks go, too, to our clerk Nicole Mason, to our policy analyst Paul Downing and to Deborah, as well as to our specialist adviser John Bell, who is up in the Gallery, for all the guidance and assistance which he gave to us.

Since we started this inquiry, as many others have mentioned, unemployment has declined, happily, which is welcome. Youth unemployment in the UK has also gone down, as indicated in the letter sent to us yesterday, although it has not gone down by quite so much as the general reduction in unemployment. None the less, that is a move in the right direction. However, we are still concerned about the underlying trend of 16 to 24 year-old NEETs. That is still a significant problem and a hard one to crack, as the Minister will know given that he tried to assist in the efforts of a previous Government to resolve this long-standing issue. This problem first reared its head in 2003-04, when the underlying figure for NEETs rose notwithstanding the growth in the economy and the general expansion of GDP.

As others have mentioned, there is also a very serious youth unemployment problem in many EU member states—hence the intervention of the Commission and the Council to try to help. We were not surprised to find that many EU countries were in a much worse position than the UK. However, as other speakers have identified, some are doing better, notably Germany, which is well ahead of the rest. Austria has also done well in this regard, as has Holland, and the situation in Scandinavia has improved. It was interesting to note that a significant change has taken place not just in Malta but in Finland. Those countries put that down to embracing the Youth Guarantee.

We considered what the winners in this situation were doing and whether we could emulate that. It is interesting to note that each of them has a more highly developed social partnership economy than we do. We tend to have a more flexible and laissez-faire approach than is the case in Germany and Holland. We also noted that all those countries had embraced the Youth Guarantee. Indeed, all the European countries have embraced it with the exception of the UK. That is an important difference and I shall devote most of my speech to addressing that issue. I appeal to the Minister not to stick too strictly to his brief when responding to the debate.

As we have heard, the committee took a lot of evidence and visited different parts of the country as well as Brussels. We found that the majority of people who submitted evidence to the committee, particularly people in this country, were in favour of adopting the Youth Guarantee. We produced a report in which we set out what we thought were cogent arguments for instituting a number of changes. We particularly wanted to persuade the Government that they should adopt the Youth Guarantee. We have been fairly modest in not asserting that it should be applied across the whole country and to all those who come off JSA after six months. We have suggested that the Youth Guarantee should be introduced only in limited areas, and that the Government should address those areas with 25%-plus youth unemployment.

Regrettably, the Government have resolutely tried to persuade us that what they were doing was more effective than the Youth Guarantee and praised the UK’s Youth Contract. However, many of our witnesses did not share that view of the Youth Contract, although it was interesting to hear what the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, said about how he sees it working in the north-east. We are grateful to the Government for sending us a 36-page document seeking to persuade us to drop our line that there was something special about the Youth Guarantee that ought to be explored. However, we have stuck to our guns. Indeed, we note that the written response still seeks to make us change our minds in that regard. I hope that the noble Lord might be prepared to reflect a little again on what we have put before him. Incidentally, I share the view of the noble Baroness, Lady O’Cathain, that when we get these long letters it would be a great help if the paragraphs were numbered in the way in which we have numbered our report. It would then be much easier to pick up individual points and refer the noble Lord to them.

I read that letter carefully overnight. I do not have a speech that responds to all the points, but I felt that the letter makes an underlying case for a trial of the Youth Guarantee. The more I read it, the more I thought, “They are making the case for us”. What comes through clearly is that there are areas in which—the noble Lord’s officials were open and straightforward with us on this when they gave evidence—they do not track everyone. In particular, I should like to ask a question about 16 and 17 year-olds. The noble Lord says that the number of NEETs has reduced significantly. We were unable to find the figures that related to these people. His department’s officials could not tell us how many were in that category. How many people just disappeared? When they left school, the officials did not know where they had gone. I should be grateful if the noble Lord could tell us the numbers and how he has managed to find them. When his people came before us in the autumn, they were unable to tell us.

This involves the worrying group that disappears into the ether. In our opinion, people in that group should be picked up because they are, effectively, trainee NEETs. If they disappear in this way, many of them will end up being permanently unemployed. We thought that if the Minister was prepared to look at the Youth Guarantee, he would find that they would be required to come into the system within four months of having left school or college. There would be a requirement to put them in the system and follow them through it.

I say to our friend the Minister, whom I refer to as a friend because he has worked on this issue for both sides, that it is difficult to see among the arguments he has advanced—given that we have European money and particular locations with special problems, and we are not asking him to run this across the whole country but only in limited areas—why he is so steadfastly opposed to the Youth Guarantee, when it has seemed to work elsewhere, has been effective and could be effective in the UK. Even if he is not prepared to look at the five areas—although I know that devolution means that Scotland has responsibility for what happens in Glasgow—and even if he went to just one of the four other areas, I am sure that our committee would be happy if we saw the noble Lord trialling the Youth Guarantee in one area.

Ultimately, while we share the direction in which the Government are travelling, to devolve down the line, we find that there are so many different interests with a finger in the pie that it is difficult to identify who, at the end of the day, has full responsibility for each individual who gets lost and ends up being permanently unemployed or workless. We have colleges and schools with a finger in the pie, as well as the careers service, the LEPs and the local authorities, which pick up people who fall into difficulties—but only where they have a responsibility to ensure that such people are cared for. We need to start looking at providing a worker who can help each person, take them into employment, training or education, and keep them out of this ever-growing category—a cohort that stays workless for many generations. It comes through clearly in the noble Lord’s letter that there are too many fingers in the pie. We need to focus on individuals who can actually deliver.

The Minister could use the money from Europe to trial the Youth Guarantee to see whether it works. It is perfectly in line with the compelling evidence that we received from the noble Lord, Lord Heseltine. This is not a party-political issue at all. We all have a serious issue and are trying to resolve those underlying problems. Ultimately, it should not be just at the four-months point when intervention should take place to try to get the numbers down; in due course, such intervention will have to be when they leave college or schools. That is not in our report and it is not going to happen. Perhaps in the mean time, however, the Minister could at least reflect on whether to carry out a trial, implementing it at the four-month point in one of the areas of the country where we have 25%-plus unemployed.

Youth Unemployment

Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe Excerpts

Monday 7th April 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Freud]

The key element of universal credit, clearly, is that it is an incentive for everyone to go to work and to work more. That is particularly attractive to younger people who are excluded from tax credits. Around universal credit, we are putting in place a series of local partnerships so that we can provide holistic help for people who have barriers to going into work. That is the issue. One needs to address the structural problems of getting youngsters and, indeed, others into work and not fiddle around with figures.

[Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe (Lab)]

My Lords, first, I am not clear about what the Minister said in his earlier reply on the numbers. Is it not true that the underlying trend for the number of long-term unemployed is still increasing, even though there have been some decreases latterly? Also, the figure is still higher than it was under the previous Government. Secondly, can he state whether he meant to say, when he attacked Labour’s policy of putting people into training, that he would rather have them unemployed than in training?

[Lord Freud]

My Lords, the figures show that the long-term unemployment figure is still 6% higher than it was in 2010, on top of the doubling that was seen under the previous Government. I am absolutely behind training because it is the way to help people, particularly youngsters, get into the labour market. The trouble is that when things such as training allowances are used as a way of distorting the underlying problem, it misleads people. Indeed, I think it has misled a lot of Members on the other side of the House.

Unemployment: Youth Unemployment

Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe Excerpts

Monday 18th November 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Freud]

My Lords, clearly, it is important to see mobility among the young who are looking for where there is work. However, it is as important for them that they equip themselves to do work, which can be done through work experience, training and apprenticeships. We are putting enormous efforts into getting those programmes right.

[Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe (Lab)]

Is the noble Lord misleading the House to a degree in quoting the figures? He referred to figures from 1997 which included and counted 16 to 18 year-olds who were unemployed, not in education and not undertaking any training. Now, because the Government no longer pay any benefits to 16 to 18 year-olds, there are literally thousands and thousands of people—the department does not know how many—who are not in employment, not counted and not included in the figures. What are you going to do to follow them?

[Lord Freud]

My Lords, I am counting inactive people in the figures I am using, which are the best ones available. Clearly, under the previous Government many people were put in government training schemes and were not counted. We can play with numbers as much as we like but I am not playing with numbers—I am giving a very clear, long-term run of the most important set of figures on how we handle the structural problem of youth exclusion from the labour market.

Violence Against Women

Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe Excerpts

Thursday 29th November 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe]

My Lords, I, too, am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Jenkin of Kennington, for sponsoring this debate, and for her introductory speech, which set the tone for us.

I declare an interest as a joint patron of the Everyman Project, which is a small London-based charity that provides training for men who are violent in family relationships but who want to stop it. Last Thursday I tried to get in a question and had I done so I would have been putting this question to the Minister—today I get the opportunity to ask her just how much money is being spent on men who are prepared to undergo training to alter their behaviour.

I know very well that if you get yourself into the criminal justice system and you end up in prison or on probation, there is an opportunity for anger management training and for individuals to try to change their practices. But for those who do not get to that stage but who want to change, I suspect that the amount of money that is available to assist them is very small indeed, and this really ought to be changed.

The vast bulk of money that is spent in this area comes from the charitable and voluntary sector. Of course, at the moment, it is extraordinarily difficult to raise cash. For example, the Everyman Project does not get a penny piece from the public purse yet it provides a 13-week training course for men who want to change. Unfortunately, we have to turn away far more men than we are able to offer training to because we simply do not have the resources to accommodate them all.

If the Government are really serious about trying to help in this area, I hope—even though I have made this plea previously, unsuccessfully—that they will be prepared to look again at the possibility of going into partnership with a number of charities, where perhaps matched funding arrangements could be made, to try to ensure that we get far more men going on these training courses. Ultimately, that is going to be a far more effective way of utilising money than the cost that is accrued when people end up in the courts and go to jail, although at the end of it they have an opportunity to get training if they are prepared to embark on it. I make an open, unabashed approach to the Minister to see whether she is prepared to take this away and give some consideration to it. I ask that question against a background of rumours that more women were killed in violent incidents in domestic disputes last year than in the previous year. I hope I am wrong on that but there are stories that that is the case. Can the Minister provide some clarity on that?

I should also like to pick up on the point made by my noble and learned friend Lady Scotland about the Corporate Alliance Against Domestic Violence, and again this goes back to government departments. I understand that the NHS has signed up to this organisation and fully supports it, but I also understand that a number of government departments have declined to do so or have not indicated a willingness to join up so far. Can the Minister say whether that is the case, which departments they are and whether she will bring pressure to bear to ensure that they go along with it?

Violence Against Women and Girls

Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe Excerpts

Thursday 22nd November 2012 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

I will certainly take on board what my noble friend said.

[Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe]

My Lords—

Employment: Sickness Absence

Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe Excerpts

Wednesday 25th January 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Freud]

My Lords, in practice there has been a lot of emphasis on the safety aspects of work and too little on health in work. One of the things that we are trying to encourage is the ramping up of health support, both in work and as people fall out of work. That is why this set of recommendations is so interesting.

[Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe]

I welcome the report and the update that the Minister has given us on the process for its implementation. He mentioned early interventions in this context, and in the debates on Monday he spoke frequently about the need for early interventions with certain families to try to get them on the right track. That is a lot of additional work coming the way of the Civil Service. Is he confident that his department has the resources to address these issues adequately? Can he say whether his department will increase or diminish in size between now and 5 April?

[Lord Freud]

My Lords, the department has an enormous workload; I am absolutely conscious of that. It is driving through one of the biggest social changes that this country has seen for many decades. At the same time, we are decreasing the numbers in the department at the centre. That does not mean that it is happening at Jobcentre Plus, which is the client-facing area. We are confident that the department, which I have now been in for some time and genuinely find admirable, is able to fulfil these objectives.