Work Experience

George Hollingbery Excerpts

Tuesday 13th March 2012 Westminster Hall

[Mr Jones]

I thank my hon. Friend, who, as a fellow Warwickshire MP, knows the importance of getting young people in our area into work. He is absolutely right that we must encourage employers, and ensure that they are not frightened of the vocal minority who seem to put political ideology before young people. Hon. Members on both sides of the House should support the Work Experience programme. It is not a panacea for the whole youth employment issue, and is probably applicable to only a small cohort of people who are difficult to get into work. We should all support the programme, and back employers to the hilt in supporting it.

No matter how unskilled—I have said that I am worried about using that word—a role may be, new staff cannot be brought into a business, whether or not they are doing work experience, without providing training. Some young people will pick up that training more quickly than others, but regardless of that, people must be trained. All employers will say that. So they must invest time, provide training, perhaps buy a uniform, and generally invest in that young person, who may be a member of staff for only a few weeks.

[George Hollingbery (Meon Valley) (Con)]

Does the issue not go even deeper than that? The House should celebrate the fact that some companies are a force for social good. They do not just make profits for the shareholder, but provide an enormous amount of employment across the piece, and ensure that this country is put on a sound financial footing. We should celebrate that.

[Mr Jones]

As ever, my hon. Friend is absolutely right. When I go out and speak to businesses in my constituency, I detect that people are becoming alive to the issue of youth unemployment, and that there is a real will in businesses to try to give young people opportunities, whether through the apprenticeship route, work experience or other parts of the Government’s Work programme. We should embrace the good will in businesses throughout the country and ensure that we fully support them, not demean them or try to make out to the public that they are trying to get something for nothing. At the end of the day, we rely greatly on the good will out there, and we must not spoil or stymie that. If we start to go down that route, we will defeat the object. Given some of the ideologies expressed, however, it seems that some people are willing to see that happen just because the current Government may not be of the same colour as them, and that seems pretty disgraceful.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sheila Gilmore]

Even if the Minister tells me that that is the case, I would not necessarily always accept everything previous Governments have done, because such provisions are not helping us in any respect to create additional jobs. The worry about firms taking successive people to do work experience without payment is that they may be reducing their other employees’ opportunities to do paid work—through additional hours, for example. We need reassurance that that is not happening, and if we do not get it, we will have some queries.

[George Hollingbery]

When I looked into the success of the future jobs fund, there was much trumpeting of 50% placements and costs per placement being reasonable. However, the cost per placement was about £3,000 to £5,000, while the figure under the work experience scheme is £200 to £300. Does the hon. Lady not agree that it was somewhat perverse for 80% of the placements under the future jobs fund to be in the public sector? Looking around the piece, that would hardly save the Government money in the long run.

[Sheila Gilmore]

My understanding regarding those public sector jobs is that there was, in part, a difficulty over whether the measures would constitute state aid if they were carried out in some other way. It is regrettable if that became an obstacle, because the future jobs fund was a good model and gave people good-quality work experience. I hope that the Government will consider returning to it in the future.

It is not my position or that of any Opposition Member that work experience is simply not to be done. However, we want people to have work experience that genuinely improves their employability; if it does not, it has to be questioned.