Labour Market Activity

Andrew Gwynne Excerpts

Tuesday 28th February 2023 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to contribute to the debate and to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing North (James Murray). It is a shame that so few Government Back Benchers seem to be interested in labour market activity, especially given that so many of them will be in need of these services in the not-too-distant future. I take issue with what the hon. Member for Broadland (Jerome Mayhew), who is not in his place, said about trade unions being the problem in the economy. It is not trade unions that are the problem in the economy but an intransigent and uncaring Government who will not sit down and negotiate and who will not deal with the underlying causes of industrial unrest.

[Chris Stephens]

It is also bad employers, and they should be tackled too.

[Andrew Gwynne]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. What is reckless for the economy is a disastrous mini-Budget which has left millions of householders with mortgage rates higher than they would otherwise have been that are locked in for the future, as well as higher inflation and spiralling energy costs as a consequence. That is the real impact of this Conservative Government on the economy.

In the north-west today, there are 57,000 more people who are economically inactive between the ages of 50 and 64 than there were in 2020. We hear a lot from this Government about growing the economy, but there seems to be no appreciation of the fact that, unless we get people back to work, the economy will remain stagnant. I represent brilliant, talented and hard-working people who are effectively being shut out of accessing the labour market because of long-term sickness or because the support just is not there to get them through the door.

Denton and Reddish straddles two local authorities, Tameside and Stockport, so I see two of everything. Sadly, that means I have seen two almost identical rises in the economic inactivity of my constituents since 2019. In Stockport, we have seen a 2.1% rise, and in Tameside, that figure sits at 1.7%. Across both local authorities, there are over 12,500 people currently claiming universal credit because they cannot access a job that pays sufficiently. Let us be clear: these are not people who have decided that work is not for them and have dropped off the grid—these are people who want to contribute but are finding that the door is locked.

Let us take long covid as an example. I speak with personal experience on this subject, because I suffered from, and indeed still have some of the symptoms of, long covid after my first bout of covid in 2020, and it is of great interest to me in my other role as shadow public health Minister. We know that there are around 2 million people living with this condition in the United Kingdom—that is 3% of the population—but there has been no meaningful effort from central Government to ensure that reasonable adjustments are being made in the workplace, and it can be done. Mr Speaker and those in the Speaker’s Office accommodated me. I found that bobbing up and down was exhausting and basically wiped me out, and a simple, reasonable adjustment was for me to hold up the Order Paper so that I could be called to speak. For everybody else, however, it is business as usual, with long covid sufferers being forced to navigate a system that has not adapted to their needs.

The Government have failed to provide specialist help for those with long-term ill health, to invest in upskilling or to target employment support at hard-to-reach groups. Instead, they have outsourced large sums of money to deliver schemes such as kickstart and restart, which are massively under-delivering. They are obsessed with slogans, but not bothered about whether they deliver on their promises. In the last 13 years, regional inequalities have widened, health inequalities have soared and our economy has flatlined. Despite that, Government Ministers still parrot the phrase “levelling up” without an ounce of shame or self-awareness. We can do much better.

Labour’s plan will devolve employment support, overhaul work capability assessments and provide targeted help for the over-50s and those with long-term ill health, which would be truly transformative for the people I represent. My constituents are tired of warm words with little substance. It is time for the Government to move out of the way and let Labour get on with the job of breaking down the barriers to opportunity and getting our economy firing on all cylinders again.