Jobs Market

Viscount Younger of Leckie Excerpts

Monday 13th October 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Sherlock (Lab)]

My Lords, as I am sure the noble Lord is very aware, there is a whole range of statistics. If he goes through the official statistics, he will see a wide range of data, each of which tells us something slightly different. He is right about nudging at payroll data, but I am absolutely right that the employment rate of the UK is at record levels—that is a fact; it is from the Office for National Statistics.

One of the challenges for the Government is to ensure that even when times are tough, we have a strategy to do three things. We must continue to develop growth and investment in our economy to make sure that the labour market is functioning. We then need to make sure that it is an inclusive labour market, and that those who are farthest from it get the skills they need to have a chance of getting the jobs, so employers can have the workers they need. Finally, we need to make sure that every area of the country works. Some local labour markets have 80% employment already, but others do not. The Government’s job is to target those three things, and that is what we are doing.

[Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)]

My Lords, there are woeful and worrying figures showing that the number of working-age people signing off work for sickness benefits has gone up from 2,000 to 5,000 per day—per day—with a direct negative impact on employment. What are the Government going to do now, before the publication of the Timms review? I remind the House that we have a whole year to wait until then, which will be one of inaction, inactivity and spiralling costs, will it not?

[Baroness Sherlock (Lab)]

My Lords, given the levels of inactivity due to health over which the noble Viscount’s Government presided, that is a brave question, but let me answer it none the less. This Government are not simply waiting for the review. The Timms review is looking specifically at PIP which, as the noble Viscount knows, is a benefit that applies in and out of work. As I have told the House before, this Government have looked carefully at three things. One is what happens to people who are on benefits. This House backed the Government in making the difficult choice to change the incentives so that for new people coming in, we would reduce by about half the extra amount of money you get on universal credit. The second is to invest up to £1 billion over the scorecard in making sure we give people the support they need. People out there want to get jobs, and we have to help them. Finally, we have invited Charlie Mayfield to produce a report looking at employers. Every time someone loses a job, it can be an £8,000 loss to the employer from lost productivity. We are investing in all three of those things.