Job Insecurity

Debate between Esther McVey and Huw Irranca-Davies

Wednesday 5th February 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Esther McVey)]

Only this Labour party could call a debate on job insecurity a week after it was announced that a record number of people have got a job. Such impeccable timing makes me think that the motion must have been written by the shadow Chancellor, for it reminds me of the time he predicted that unemployment would soar by 1 million just before it fell by 1 million to a record low or the time he called a triple-dip recession just before official figures showed we had not even had a double-dip recession. In fact, the only recession that took place was when the Labour Government were in power.

And here we have a motion on job insecurity just after we have had the biggest rise in jobs in 40 years—more than 30 million employed—while unemployment has fallen in every part of the country. It is clear that even Labour Members were disappointed by the motion and had no faith in it, because the Opposition Benches were empty throughout the afternoon. The hon. Member for Streatham (Mr Umunna) has not returned to the Chamber, although it was he who moved the motion, but I can tell the House that in his constituency the claimant count is down by 20% and the youth claimant count is down by 36%. No wonder he is not present to hear those facts. As for the right hon. Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms), the claimant count in his constituency is down by 27% and the youth claimant count is down by 30%.

Labour Members may talk about job insecurity, but the biggest guarantee of job insecurity is a Labour Government. If Members want the facts, I can tell them that unemployment rose by nearly half a million under Labour, female unemployment rose by 24%, youth unemployment rose by 45%, and long-term unemployment almost doubled between 2008 and 2010.

The truth is that Britain is poorer because of the recession over which the Labour Government presided. As Paul Johnson of the Institute for Fiscal Studies put it,

“That household incomes are lower than before the recession and are lower than they were in 2010 is hardly surprising. We have just lived through the deepest recession in generations”.

We are living beyond our means, but given that they were borrowing £160 billion every year, what do the Opposition expect? What we needed to do—and what we have done, in remarkably good time—was turn the economy around in three years. We did what we said we would do: we stabilised the economy, rebalanced the economy, and grew the economy. Even the International Monetary Fund has said that it is now the fastest-growing economy in the western world, and Mark Carney has said:

“The economy is growing at its fastest pace in 6 years… The recovery has finally taken hold.”

That has happened under this coalition Government.

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

rose—

[Esther McVey]

I should love to hear what the hon. Gentleman has to say.

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

The Minister is giving a glowing report of the coalition Government’s success, but will she tell us whether she has had sight of what now seems to be the suppressed report on food aid that landed on Ministers’ desks a year ago and has not surfaced? Will she give an undertaking to produce that report, which deals with the causes of poverty among working people?

[Esther McVey]

I have not had sight of the report from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, because I am a Minister in the Department for Work and Pensions, but once it has been authorised and released, the hon. Gentleman can read it.

Let us return to today’s debate. We heard a great deal of what I would describe as misinformation about the number of people in part-time work. Since the election, the number of people in full-time work has risen by 1 million; three out of four people are in full-time work, and we have stabilised the position. In the last quarter, the number of people wanting to move from part-time to full-time work fell for the first time ever, and—Opposition Members may be startled to hear this—between 2005 and 2010, the number doubled. That is the truth of Labour’s legacy.

Opposition Members talk of zero-hours contracts, but the number of zero-hours contracts is the same as it was in 2000. The 75% increase happened between 2004 and 2009. Moreover, if we want to think about getting our houses in order, we should note that the council with the worst record for zero-hours contracts is Labour-run Doncaster council, which is in the constituency of the Leader of the Opposition and also in the constituency of one of the ladies on the Opposition Front Bench.

Turning to the contributions of those on the Government Benches, my hon. Friend the Member for St Albans (Mrs Main) talked some good common sense about people getting their foot on the ladder, job progression, the fact that the number of apprenticeships has doubled in her constituency, and how this Government are helping families and young people into work. She also questioned what the hon. Member for Streatham (Mr Umunna) meant when he said, “Don’t take any old job; some jobs are different from other jobs.” There was some real job snobbery from the Opposition Front Bench.

My hon. Friend the Member for Selby and Ainsty (Nigel Adams) talked about youth unemployment being down by 25% in his constituency, and how he does not talk down the economy, but instead talks it up because that is positive and it helps people into work.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Esther McVey and Huw Irranca-Davies

Monday 14th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Esther McVey]

My hon. Friend is right. Work Choice has been a success. We are looking at the disability employment strategy. For the first time ever we are considering greater segmentation and greater differentiation, and the greater support that is needed. We have also engaged with business as never before. We have started a two-year disability confident programme, engaging with 430 businesses and 35 of the FTSE 100. We need employers to work with us to give these people jobs.

[Huw Irranca-Davies (Ogmore) (Lab)]

19. In the same way that the miners’ buy-out of Tower colliery succeeded in sustaining well-paid jobs and exposed the lie that every pit was uneconomic, does the reopening this week of the former Forestfach Remploy site in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Swansea West (Geraint Davies) with workers’ redundancy money give the lie to the need to shut so many viable Remploy factories, such as that in Bridgend, where the workers and management had both the business case and the burning desire to keep the factory open?

[Esther McVey]

I think that the hon. Gentleman does not really understand what happened with the whole set of Remploy factories. In 2008, the Labour party put in £555 million for a modernisation plan that failed. Those factories that can exist as viable businesses are doing so. We have helped them in that. We have supported them, and more than nine have reopened. Of those that could not, we have got some of the employees into work and others are opening up as social enterprises. The Opposition tried and failed. We are doing something about this and supporting those people.

--- Later in debate ---

[Huw Irranca-Davies (Ogmore) (Lab)]

T4. Housing associations in Ogmore are carrying a rising level of debt on their balance sheets as a result of rent arrears. They have a desperate scarcity of one and two-bedroom properties to rent, and yet they have three-bedroom properties lying empty. Is this just a necessary but painful adjustment to the Secretary of State’s benefit and bedroom tax changes?

[Esther McVey]

This is something we have to do. I have answered this before: how many people we have to look at who are on waiting lists, how many are in overcrowded housing, and how the bill doubled under Labour. The hon. Gentleman is quite right—we have to get the stock right: the fact that there are three-bedroom houses and why in the last three years they have not been modified into one and two-bedroom houses. Those questions have to be asked. That is what we have to do: get the stock right and support people as best we can.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Esther McVey and Huw Irranca-Davies

Monday 28th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Esther McVey]

I would not seek to tell anybody what they should do. We seek to work closely with people to enable and support them as best we can. We are doing that by trebling the discretionary payment to help people into work, because if they are on working tax credits, they will be exempt from the benefit cap.

[Huw Irranca-Davies (Ogmore) (Lab)]

I can tell the House that

“carers caring for an adult disabled child or other adult relative could see their benefits capped, because the DLA of the people they care for is not considered to be in the same benefit package or ‘household’ as the carers’–even if they are living together.”

This is a direct quote from Carers UK. Does the Minister agree with Carers UK that it is confusing, complicated and simply unfair to protect some carers and not others?

[Esther McVey]

I remind the hon. Gentleman that the definition of “household” has been in place for some time, so what has happened has always been in place. As the Secretary of State said, there are many exemptions from the cap. Working with the discretionary payment, we can work together to get this right.