Oral Answers to Questions

Gerry Sutcliffe Excerpts

Monday 8th December 2014 Commons Chamber

[Esther McVey]

I congratulate my hon. Friend, because that is his fourth jobs fair, with over 400 jobs and 50 apprenticeships available. I understand why it is so important to him, because he left school at 17, got a job and was made redundant, so he set up his own business, on £20 a week with a Government enterprise scheme, and built the company up so much that he then sold it to a plc. That is why he wants to help more and more people into jobs and to set up businesses. Jobcentre Plus can offer practical support to publicise jobs fairs, help with getting in touch with claimants and, where possible, and on a case-by-case basis, there might also be financial support.

[Mr Gerry Sutcliffe (Bradford South) (Lab)]

Is the Minister not concerned about the number of people working full-time on zero-hours contracts, and does she know how many such people there are?

[Esther McVey]

Those people on zero-hours contracts comprise 2% of all workers, and I remind the hon. Gentleman that the UK Statistics Authority called the Opposition to account for inflating the number of people on zero-hours contracts. What I can tell him is that the vast majority of jobs are full-time and permanent. That is what we should be celebrating now, with nearly 2 million more people in work since the general election.

Oral Answers to Questions

Gerry Sutcliffe Excerpts

Monday 1st September 2014 Commons Chamber

[Steve Webb]

My hon. Friend is quite right that older workers have valuable knowledge and experience and that employers who fail to retain their older workers are losing important skills from their work force. However, I can assure my hon. Friend and the centenarians who will be attending his event in Southend that we do not require them actively to seek work.

[Mr Gerry Sutcliffe (Bradford South) (Lab)]

What will the Government do to support those workers who, owing to the raising of the pension age in some key public services, might not be physically active enough to do their current jobs?

[Steve Webb]

The hon. Gentleman raises an important point. In a world where people will be of working age for potentially 50 years, assuming that they will do a single job for their whole life is increasingly unrealistic. We need to do a great deal more to enable people to transition into less physically demanding jobs. We have recently piloted something called the mid-life career review, which starts people thinking much earlier about what they might be able to do later in life and other courses of action that might be open to them. We also need to challenge employer attitudes, which we are doing.

Oral Answers to Questions

Gerry Sutcliffe Excerpts

Thursday 30th January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Grant]

I will consider that request and write to my hon. Friend.

[Mr Gerry Sutcliffe (Bradford South) (Lab)]

There is all-party support for the changes to football legislation mentioned in the Select Committee report and I urge the Minister to keep the pressure on. Otherwise, experience shows that football authorities think we have gone away. Football supporters want to see change.

[Mrs Grant]

Rest assured that we will.

Remploy

Gerry Sutcliffe Excerpts

Monday 10th December 2012 Commons Chamber

[Esther McVey]

The hon. Lady is quite right; as I mentioned in my statement, it has been a low start, but the numbers are increasing daily and we are doing as much as we possibly can. When I was given the choice whether to announce to the work force what was happening now, or to do so later, I believed that it was necessary that everybody had as much notice as possible. This is the start of a consultation period of 90 days, followed by a further consultation for a month. It is right and fair that everybody knows what is happening and that is why I took the actions that I did.

[Mr Gerry Sutcliffe (Bradford South) (Lab)]

Before I became an MP I used to represent Remploy workers, and I saw the special nature of Remploy factories. We lost our factory in Bradford. The hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) tried to oppose that closure, as I did, and 90% of the people who were there are not in employment. If this is about consultation, as the Minister says, will she ensure, as she tracks these people, that if they do not get employment, the closure process will be stopped until a successful scheme is in place?

[Esther McVey]

The hon. Gentleman makes a fine point: when the factories were closed in 2008, no plans, process, tracking or special consideration were given to the workers. That is now changing. We are obviously starting from a stop-start position, because we did not have this in place previously. As each day goes by, the process becomes better and more people are in work.

Oral Answers to Questions

Gerry Sutcliffe Excerpts

Thursday 22nd November 2012 Commons Chamber

[Maria Miller]

The hon. Lady puts her finger on it. We know that there are participation issues, so rather than simply continuing to audit it, we are taking action. We already have our £1 billion youth and community sports strategy, which is looking at ways of ensuring that girls take part in sport, and the Active Women programme, a £10 million lottery programme aimed at getting women into sport. Of course, the most important audit of all was the Olympic games this summer, in which the very first gold medal was won by a woman, as indeed was the last. That is evidence that things are moving in the right direction, but clearly there is still more to do.

[Mr Gerry Sutcliffe (Bradford South) (Lab)]

It is important to build on the success of the Olympics, particularly in participation, but the reason a survey is important is that we are seeing a drop in the number of girls involved in school sport, so there is a need to measure what is happening. I think the Secretary of State should speak with the Secretary of State for Education, who does not seem to like sport.

[Maria Miller]

I can assure the hon. Gentleman that I speak regularly with the Secretary of State for Education on this and many other issues and to ensure that we continue the excellent work of the school games, which has done so much not only to improve girls’ participation in sport, but to help more disabled people get involved.

Oral Answers to Questions

Gerry Sutcliffe Excerpts

Monday 23rd April 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gerry Sutcliffe (Bradford South) (Lab)]

May I add my condolences to the family of Lord Ashley, who was a tremendous worker in both Houses? The Minister is right: it is difficult to deal with families with multiple disadvantages. The difficulty is that that group is growing wider now because of people losing disability or other benefits. How will the Minister make sure that we maintain an up-to-date list of the families who have problems—a list that is going to grow?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. This is one of the big issues that we have to deal with. The reason why Louise Casey was asked to do this work was so that she, working with the local authorities, could start to map out where the most difficult families are in their areas. The key thing—I come back to this—is that it is ultimately local authorities that will and should know where these families are. There are some good examples. In Westminster the council has already hubbed up the issue and got organisations working with it; other local authorities are not so good. I am not here to name and blame, but I want local authorities to act with Louise Casey and the team to make sure we map those families, as the hon. Gentleman so rightly asks us to do.

Oral Answers to Questions

Gerry Sutcliffe Excerpts

Monday 5th March 2012 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

I assume that the hon. Lady is referring to the programme that we have just announced for 16 to 17-year-olds. Of course, the big challenge with that age group is not the total number of NEETs, because most young people move quickly back into education. However, there is a hard core of young people who spend long periods not in education or employment, and they are not in the benefits system either, so we have no direct means of engaging with them. I hope and believe that the new approach—founded on payment by results, with charitable and private sector groups working together to try to reach that audience—will make a big difference to engaging with them and getting them back into either employment or education.

[Mr Gerry Sutcliffe (Bradford South) (Lab)]

How will the scheme help people in my constituency, where youth unemployment has increased by 88% in the past 12 months? Is not this too little, too late?

[Chris Grayling]

I am afraid that the hon. Gentleman is continuing to cite figures that are statistically inaccurate. The figures to which he refers were distorted by the previous Government’s propensity to bury young people in the statistics where they would not be visible. Now that we do not put people on to a training allowance, which counts as being off jobseeker’s allowance, we are telling the truth about the scale of youth unemployment and seeing the real picture. Our statisticians have made the calculations and found that, when those statistical adjustments are taken into account, there has been no increase in youth unemployment of more than six months over the past two years.

Oral Answers to Questions

Gerry Sutcliffe Excerpts

Monday 14th June 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gerry Sutcliffe (Bradford South) (Lab)]

One of the successes of the future jobs fund has been in the area of sports. I heard the Minister say earlier that he would stop future contracts, but full-time jobs in sport have been found at the end of the period, and I hope that he will look again at that decision.

[Chris Grayling]

Absolutely; I also expect sport to take advantage of some of the apprenticeship opportunities. There will be tens of thousands of further opportunities under the future jobs fund, as well as additional apprenticeships and further opportunities provided through the Work programme. We intend to do everything we can to ensure that, when this Government leave office, youth unemployment is lower than it is today—unlike the record of the Labour party in its 13 years in government.