Employment

Lord Holmes of Richmond Excerpts

Wednesday 15th January 2014 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Holmes of Richmond]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the number of people in full-time employment in the United Kingdom.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Lord Freud) (Con)]

There are more people in work than ever before. The latest figures show that we have reached a record high employment level in the UK, with more than 30 million people now in work. Three in every four workers—about 22 million people—are in full-time employment. In the past year, the number of people in full-time work has risen by 460,000. This represents 95% of the increase in total employment in the UK.

[Lord Holmes of Richmond (Con)]

I thank my noble friend for his response. These figures are very good news. Work represents the greatest way for people not only to escape poverty but for most of us to realise our potential. What are the Government doing to ensure that all groups benefit from this employment boom, not least young people and disabled people?

[Lord Freud]

My noble friend is right to concentrate on specifics, and I am happy to assure him that we have campaigns to get the disabled into work. We have just launched the two-year Disability Confident campaign for employers, and in December we issued the disability health employment strategy. As for youth, I am pleased to be able to say that JSA for youth has now fallen for 18 consecutive months. The number of young NEETs is the lowest for a decade. We have 1.5 million apprenticeship places. The key measure that I have used in this House before is the number of young out of work and out of education, which rose under the previous Government, even though we had the biggest boom. We have now got it under control and it is beginning to fall. The number is now down by 100,000 since the election.