amendment of the law

Chris Heaton-Harris Excerpts

Tuesday 25th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Chris Heaton-Harris (Daventry) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Jack Dromey). I thank him for his valiant attempt to explain his party’s economic policy using real-life examples, but he has to admit that it is a very confused policy. A bit like a chameleon that has fallen into a bag of Smarties, it is changing almost by the day, by the hour. On the Government side of the House, we are waiting to find out what his party will vote for or against in this Budget, with about two hours to go before the vote.

However, the hon. Gentleman identified a really important point, which I would like to come back to. He spoke about the diverse nature of our individual constituencies—Birmingham, Erdington and mine of Daventry. Maybe, just maybe—this follows points made in speeches from Opposition Members—we are all missing a trick in trying to tackle some of the long-term unemployment problems our country faces.

However, I start by saying that this is a very good Budget. A record number of people are now in work. The pace of net job creation under this Government has been three times faster than in any other recovery on record. Unemployment figures for March show a 20% fall in the claimant count in just one year and the fastest fall in the youth claimant count since 1997. That is something we should all be able to welcome. The Office for Budget Responsibility forecast 1.5 million more jobs over the next five years. Again, that is something we can all welcome. There are a record number of women in work, and for the first time in 35 years we have a higher employment rate than the United States of America.

There are good measures in the Budget for our exporters and good financial support to put them on an even keel with their international competitors. We are lifting people out of paying tax—3 million by 2015. So many of them will be better off by £800 each year because of the changes in the tax system. There are 450,000 fewer workless households, which is surely something to celebrate. It might not be enough, but it is something to be pleased about.

We have a fantastic new policy for pensions. We have introduced the workplace pension, the single-tier pension and now the change in policy for annuities will allow people to help shape their futures as they choose, with their own money. Three quarters of a million more people are in full-time work—that is something to celebrate—and 300,000 more people are in part-time work.

I hope that Opposition Members will stop their attack on part-time work, because it is important for all sorts of sectors in the economy, and indeed all types of people, whether students in the summer or mothers returning to work after having children. Part-time work is fundamentally important in helping to drive our economy.

Like the hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington, I am unsure about zero-hours contracts, having heard good and bad stories about them. However, I remind him that he was the head of a trade union that pushed for a European measure that led to less flexibility in our work force here in the United Kingdom. Indeed, a Labour Secretary of State went to the European Parliament to plead for the United Kingdom to be allowed more flexibility. I suggest that the lack of flexibility in our employment market might have led businesses to look around for something that would allow greater flexibility, and that seems to be zero-hours contracts.

[Jack Dromey]

I take it that the hon. Gentleman is referring to the agency workers directive.

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

That was one of them, yes.

[Jack Dromey]

Then I plead guilty. I was one of those involved in those discussions, and absolutely rightly so. If there are two people doing the same job alongside each another, one who is an agency worker and one who is directly employed, it is absolutely right that they should be paid at the same rate. To fail to do that divides work forces and, as we have seen in some areas of economy, damages social cohesion.

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that point. He and I have a difference of opinion on the matter, which I would happily talk to him about over one of those beers he used to have too many of. The point I was trying to make is that the lack of flexibility in our employment market might have led employers to try various tactics to reintroduce flexibility by a different route.

Like the hon. Gentleman, I have been talking to my constituents about the Budget over the past few days. Unlike him—I might be wrong about this—I go to a gym, which is a privilege. My doctor told me I should go. In fact, he says that I have the lower limbs of a runner—“athlete’s foot”, as he puts it colloquially. I was talking to a personal trainer at the gym who recognised the importance of lifting the tax threshold and how much it would mean to him. I also met a man there who has three jobs: he is a pest control expert, he sells logs and he is a gritter for my local authority. He recognised the importance of the change in the tax threshold and welcomes any changes that bring about a healthy welfare cap. I also met a neighbour of mine there who is very pleased with the pension changes because they will allow him to plan for his retirement flexibly, and hopefully spend his own money which he has already earned and paid tax on.

The Government have delivered some good thing for my constituency, such as the university technical college and massive investment in the further education sector, which will help with long-term youth unemployment in future. There has been massive investment in the town of Daventry, helped by the council, and massive investment coming into the Daventry international rail freight terminal, where new businesses and logistics are settling. That means that my constituency is remarkably different from Birmingham, Erdington. There are only 1,000 JSA claimants in my constituency—it is still too many—which is down by 30% from last year. That is a claimant rate of 2.1%. For 18 to 24-year-olds, the rate has fallen by almost 30%. The number of people claiming for more than 12 months has also fallen by over 30%.

As the hon. Members for Birmingham, Erdington and for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg) and, to a certain extent, the hon. Member for Wigan (Lisa Nandy) said, we all have completely different constituencies. Perhaps the one-size-fits-all nature of Government delivery in trying to get people out of long-term unemployment simply will not work. We need a much more flexible solution.

Unlike some Opposition Members, I am quite pleased with the developments in the Work programme. It is a very big programme that has had more than its fair share of teething troubles, but up to December 2013 A4e, one of the two providers in my constituency, has achieved over 100 positive job outcomes in Daventry, which in the majority of cases means someone being supported into a job lasting over six months. On Friday, I went to A4e’s offices and met some of the people who work there helping to get people in my constituency back to work. I met Jodie, Hollie and lots of A4e staff giving their all to try to remedy this problem that we have in all our constituencies. I say to Labour Members that the one-size-fits-all approach does not work all the time. We need flexible solutions, and sometimes private providers are just as good as the public sector in achieving that.