Employment
Lord Holmes of Richmond Excerpts(10 years, 9 months ago)
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Lord Holmes of Richmond (Con)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for initiating this incredibly significant debate and for all the work that he has done across the work and pensions landscape, which has been ground-breaking and innovative. It is worth reiterating yesterday’s employment figures: there are more people in employment now than at any previous time; more people employed in the private sector than at any previous time; and more women in employment than ever before. Yesterday’s Budget was a Budget for jobs: employment is up; growth is up; the deficit is down by a third and by next year it will be down by a half. Could there be any greater evidence for that than the announcement this morning from Hitachi that it will base its global—yes, global—rail business in the UK?
It is one thing for employers to provide jobs; we also need to ensure that the skills and training are there so that our people, particularly our young people, are ready to take up those employment opportunities. To that end, I commend the work of my noble friend Lord Baker of Dorking with the university technical colleges and the work they are doing. All educational establishments should focus on not just a careers service but what is now known as employability. I suggest to the Minister that he should consider a potentially statutory obligation on schools, colleges and universities to the young people leaving them which would last until those young people enter the next stage of their journey, be it higher education, training or employment. In future, it should not be possible to have someone who is not in education, employment or training and who has nobody potentially looking out for, supporting and assisting them to take that next step—whatever the right step might be for them.
Working on the Olympic and Paralympic Games, we saw the opportunity to create hundreds of thousands of jobs, but also how there were gaps—particularly in the host boroughs—in finding people to fill those jobs and to drive employment in the local area as much as we all wanted. That will continue. When you look at iCITY, a brilliant redevelopment of the media centre in the Olympic park, there will be high-skill, high-tech jobs. We need to ensure that people have the right skills to be able to go into those jobs and to continue to work in their local areas. Similarly in terms of construction, there is the E20 village—the old athletes’ village—and the new plans at Ebbsfleet. In Scotland, there is the new town at Tornagrain. These will provide thousands of constructions jobs, engineering jobs and jobs across the economy. We need to ensure that people are ready, willing and able to take up those jobs. Similarly, across the massive infrastructure programme that we are rolling out under the careful eye of my noble friend Lord Deighton, there is again potential to drive economic growth and employment opportunities right up and down the country, but we need to have people ready, willing and able to take up those jobs.
UKTI has already been mentioned. Great work has been done but successive generations have relied far too much on the EEC, the EC and now the EU. Yes, Europe is a great market but it is not the only one. We have got nowhere near maximising our opportunities with the BRIC economies. When I was with the GREAT campaign down in Rio in 2011, I found that Italy exported many multiples more than the UK did to Brazil. Italy has no historical or language connection to Brazil but it has built up an effective, practical and meaningful trading relationship that has driven jobs, and not just in Brazil, for Italian businesses. We need to look at that, not just in terms of the BRIC economies but also the new MINT economies—Mexico, Indonesia, Nigeria and, not least, Turkey. Turkey is pretty much on our doorstep. To get a sense of the demographic there, take any western European advanced mature democracy and then turn that demographic on its head. That is the opportunity in Turkey. The majority of the population is under 25. Its economic growth is in double digits. Those people are purchasing and we need to ensure that they have the opportunity to purchase British stuff and so drive employment for our businesses right up and down the UK.
I turn to Scotland. Ultimately—in September—an incredibly significant decision will be made by the Scottish people, the most significant decision for the union in hundreds of years. It will not be simply a decision about their destiny, and it will not be considered only on the basis of Faslane. It will not be about oil, per se, and it will not be about the financial service industry in Edinburgh in isolation. It will be about jobs. It will be about employment. When Scottish voters put their cross in the box in September, I urge them not to think just about Scottish jobs; I urge them to think about English jobs and UK jobs, because that is what is at stake, and we will all benefit if we keep the union together.
In short, the Budget was about employment. It was about possibility. It was about potential. We are not out of the woods but we are on the right road. There is a long journey ahead of us. We need to drill into those employment figures, as has already been mentioned, and ensure that every area and region of the country is benefiting from this employment boom. We need to ensure that young people and disabled people are similarly benefiting and being enabled into employment. In short, we need to ensure, for all our sakes, that every person who is able to work is enabled to do so and that we provide real security for those who are not. It is in all our interests to drive this forward. What we should all be striving for is a high-employment, low-inflation, high-productivity, low-interest-rate, prosperous United Kingdom economy that is focused on and fit for the future.
Olympic and Paralympic Legacy Committee
Lord Holmes of Richmond Excerpts(10 years, 9 months ago)
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Lord Holmes of Richmond (Con)
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for securing this debate on an issue of such importance, not just to this House but to the entire United Kingdom, and for chairing the ad hoc committee in such a commendable way.
On 6 July 2005, just before 1 pm, London time, I stood in Trafalgar Square for what was surely the longest envelope-opening in history—and we heard that word, “London”. What a decision, what a journey, and what a Games. Some 2.4 million fans came to the Paralympics in person, tens of millions watched on Channel 4, and hundreds of millions watched around the world—many watching Paralympic sport for the first time. It was a Games that made household names out of Paralympic athletes for the first time in history. It was a Games in which all the Olympic sponsors were also signed up as Paralympic sponsors, and in which broadcasters around the world showed wall-to-wall coverage.
However, that was then. What of this in 2014? There are massive memories and all that glittering gold, but what stacks up in terms of the legacy promised right from the word go? It makes sense to start with sport. When the noble Lord, Lord Coe, spoke in Singapore he talked about inspiring young people all around the world to choose sport. Since that moment, 350,000 more disabled people are engaged in sport, but that represents tens of percentage points less than their non-disabled counterparts and is a stubborn figure on which to improve.
The funding is in good shape. UK Sport, post-London 2012, has increased funding for Paralympic sport by 45%. Sport England has committed £157 million to improve participation facilities so that disabled people right across the country can get into sport. For the first time, it has put a criterion in the funding programmes for national governing bodies requiring figures to be recorded on disabled participation in their sports. Forty-two out of the 46 national governing bodies have signed up to this. What does the Minister believe Sport England is doing to ensure that that becomes 46 out of 46?
There has also been a tremendous events legacy from the Paralympic Games. In November, the International Tennis Federation will host the wheelchair tennis male singles. Next year, the Para-Swimming world championships will take place in Glasgow, and in 2017—probably the high point of this current cycle—the IAAF World Athletics Championships will also have a Paralympic Athletics World Championships.
On the one-year anniversary of the Games, we saw this events strategy brought into stark relief with, for the first time, the National Paralympic Day being hosted on the Olympic park. Some 6,200 people came through the Copper Box to watch not only elite sport but, in the morning, to witness young people from all the growth boroughs have the opportunity to have a go and try out Paralympic sport. That is a real legacy. And it was not just about London: in 36 events right across the country, from Glasgow to Hastings, people had the opportunity to try sport. Leeds City Council reported 1,000 people trying out Paralympic sport in that city alone, and there was a social media campaign touching three-quarters of a million people. This was ground-breaking stuff.
A year on from the Games, back at the park and right after the Anniversary Games, we saw not only superb Olympic performances but Paralympic athletics in a packed-out stadium. For the first time, sponsors were not just getting involved at Games time but continuing their involvement with the British Paralympic Association and with Paralympic sport. Sainsbury’s was very quick out of the blocks with its legacy plans. It announced them in the same week as the closing ceremony for the Paralympic Games. The Sainsbury’s Active Kids For All programme goes to the heart of one of the key problems, enabling those involved in teaching and in leading sport to gain the skills, the experience and, crucially, the comfort and the confidence to become involved and to offer sporting opportunities to disabled people right across the country.
Similarly, BP and BT have announced continued commitment to the British Paralympic Association right through to the Rio cycle. This has never happened before. Historically, Paralympic sport has not even had sponsors in the first place; certainly the sponsors do not stick around post-Games to be involved between the four-year cycles.
Probably one of the greatest things, and the one that gave us so much promise for the legacy, was the broadcast deals that we were able to strike at LOCOG. Channel 4 provided wall-to-wall coverage at Games time, with a continued commitment post-Games, not least in programmes such as “The Last Leg”, which was truly ground-breaking, brave broadcasting. Its marketing campaign at Games time and post-Games was led by Dan Brooke, something of a marketing guru. He runs the marketing campaigns at Channel 4 and he also happens to be the son of my noble friend Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville.
Then there was Sochi only last week. Previously, had it not been for London, you would not have seen Paralympic winter sport on your TV screens. The coverage of the athletes on snow and ice brought to us by Channel 4 and BBC Radio 5 Live was a real sporting legacy from the broadcasters.
It is probably worth mentioning at this point one of the unsung but most significant parts of the Games, not just in the run-up to the Olympic and Paralympic Games but post-Games. A real cornerstone of the legacy is the National Lottery, which provided half the funding for the Paralympic Games. I think we all owe a tremendous debt to Sir John Major for what he did all those years ago. He showed the vision, drive and determination to have a National Lottery which would commit so much funding and so much possibility to sport, culture and the arts in this country. It made a difference at Games time and it will make a difference in legacy, not least with the Spirit of 2012 Trust, which has £40 million to push into strategic projects, not least in the area of disability sport.
How do we measure all this? In some ways in terms of the legacy for 2012, one could cite AJP Taylor on the Russian revolution: “It’s too early to say”. Much research was done post-Games. We at LOCOG commissioned research all the way through—we were convinced that we should root everything we did in research. What we saw in the autumn, post-Games, was a real shift in both qualitative and quantitative data. There was attitudinal change as a result of our hosting the Paralympic Games in London. The qualitative data showed that it was not just a question of numbers shifting by large percentages; they showed that attitudes had shifted tremendously. However, all this is incredibly tentative and could easily just slip away if it is not gripped, grasped and driven by all the different organisations responsible for making this stuff happen post-Games for decades to come.
Similarly, we did not just want London 2012 to be the most accessible Olympic and Paralympic Games in history. We were not just providing access for access’s sake; we were doing it to build an inclusive experience at Games time. That is a key element of the legacy. What we were able to achieve at Games time is not what people experience in the premiership, in rugby or in sporting events right across the country. In the coming year, we are going to lead a piece of work for the Equality and Human Rights Commission to really drive into this and to try to assist those organisations to make a significant difference in that area. My interests in the EHRC are as set out in the register.
When we talk about legacy, it is useful to glance over our shoulders and remind ourselves that we have the absolute honour to have started the Paralympic Games in this country. We have that gem and are pushing it into our legacy going forward. Now, wherever the Paralympic Games are held, there will be a flame festival at Stoke Mandeville, where the flame will be lit and taken to wherever the Games are. We saw it recently as the flame started its journey to the Sochi Paralympic Games. This will happen for Rio, Pyeongchang and beyond, putting Stoke Mandeville at the heart not just of history but of the Games going forward. This is reflected across the park with Mandeville Place, with the Agitos—that fabulous Paralympic symbol—and with a medical centre named after Sir Ludwig Guttmann, the genius who came up with the idea of a Paralympic Games in Stoke Mandeville in 1948. That is where it began and it has to have a future, a purpose and a relevance.
In conclusion, I want to highlight two final points which, of themselves, may seem quite small but which I believe had an incredible impact at the time and have the potential, if grasped, to be central to the whole question of legacy. The first is that for the Olympic and Paralympic Games we were able to get true cross-Whitehall working, with 18 government departments coming together and connecting to makes the Games happen. The Games were unique but that cross-Whitehall working does not need to be unique just at Games time; it needs to continue in order to drive and deliver the legacy, and it needs to continue across, quite frankly, every appropriate relevant policy area.
Secondly, the work we did with Get Set and the education programme enabled young people with open minds to learn about the Olympic and Paralympic values. Schoolchildren with open minds—the architects, web designers, policymakers and politicians of tomorrow—are learning about inclusion. When they grow up and are in their professional careers, diversity and inclusion will be a given.
There are many ways to look at legacy. There are many measures, including more than several spreadsheets and many metrics. All that has its place but alongside it I urge that we look at the specific, the individual, to see the world in a grain of sand. That was brought home to me last year at an event when a young blind lady spoke to me. She said, “Before the Paralympics, I was ashamed of my white stick. I did not like going out in public. The Paralympic Games made me proud to be a disabled person in Britain”. Our mission is nothing short of that. We have to ensure that we drive legacy and that our Government, corporations, communities and individuals do everything they can to enable that inclusive environment where everyone, regardless of background, disability and any intervening factor, is able to achieve their full potential in a truly united kingdom.
25th Anniversary of the World Wide Web
Lord Holmes of Richmond Excerpts(10 years, 11 months ago)
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Lord Holmes of Richmond (Con)
My Lords, www.chrisholmes.co.uk—if I am not in the Chamber, that is where you can find me. That is the point; we all need an online presence, or at least an online connection. If we want the best shopping deals, the cheapest flights, the best hotels, or if we want to interact with local or national government, we do so online. When I was a schoolboy, 25 years ago, I had no idea about the world wide web or its potential; I was still playing on my ZX Spectrum.
Latterly, at the Olympic and Paralympic Games, when we were making the Games’ website, we were profoundly aware of the impact that it could have. It was the most visited website of the year, reaching billions around the world to become the first truly new-media Olympic and Paralympic Games. That is the point; we need to be online, and yet millions suffer on the wrong side of the digital divide, for reasons of age and geography, for social and economic reasons, or because of disability-related factors. Disabled people who are currently offline number 3.8 million. This has to change. We need to look across the piece at the skills, kit and technology—and, crucially, at ensuring that the best broadband is rolled out right across Britain. I ask my noble friend the Minister to comment specifically on all the points around broadband.
The coming decade will be fascinating, not least in the relationship between our on and offline environments, such as the connection between bricks and clicks in retail. Click and collect was excellently delivered this Christmas by our retailers, not least John Lewis. In a wider context, to see how the internet has impacted politics, we should look to Libya and Egypt. There is all this to come, and the time moves so quickly in this internet age.
Similarly, considering where the next steps will come from, we have already heard about issues of online security. As Eric Schmidt of Google said, “Mea culpa, we didn’t think criminals would show up”. It is crucial that we make this environment safe and secure. A lot of that will tie in with the quality and credibility of the content that is online: how it is ranked, how we access it, whether we can rely on what we are reading online and how we can make sure that we are secure while we are there.
In short, we have to consider accessibility in its widest possible sense. We have to consider usability in its widest possible sense. As has already been mentioned by noble Lords, we need inclusion and inclusivity in their widest possible senses. We need to ensure that we do not construct in the internet world artificial, exclusionary barriers and steps in cyberspace.
Employment
Lord Holmes of Richmond Excerpts(10 years, 11 months ago)
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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.