Welfare Reform and Work Bill (Fourth sitting)

Hannah Bardell Excerpts

Tuesday 15th September 2015 Public Bill Committees

[The Chair]

Before we begin our line-by-line consideration of the Bill, there are a number of things I would like to say, particularly to younger, newer Members. I can remember from 20-odd years ago that it is quite daunting.

I have a little bit of housekeeping. Feel free to remove jackets but please ensure that all electronic devices are turned off or switched to silent mode, especially you, Mr Timms. The selection list for today’s sitting is available and shows how the selected amendments have been grouped together for debate. Amendments grouped together are generally on the same or similar issue. The Member who has put his or her name to the lead amendment in the group is called first. Other Members are then free to catch my eye to speak on any or all of the amendments within that group. A Member may speak more than once in a single debate, although that is relatively unusual.

Please note that decisions on amendments do not take place in the order that they are debated, but in the order that they appear on the amendment paper. In other words, the debate occurs according to the selection and grouping list, and decisions are taken when we come to the clause affected by the amendments. It is important that speeches relate to the amendment or new clause we are discussing. We do not want Second Reading speeches on every amendment. I will be watching out for that quite carefully.

Sedentary interventions are never helpful and responding to them is even less so. If you have an intervention to make, the usual thing is to ask the person speaking to give way. Let us not call that out to each other from the Floor, thank you. I hope all that is helpful. It is my discretion whether to allow a separate stand part debate on individual clauses and schedules following debates on the relevant amendments. Let us see how we go on clause by clause.

Clause 1

Full employment: reporting obligation

[Hannah Bardell (Livingston) (SNP)]

I beg to move amendment 22, in clause 1, page 1, line 3, leave out “Parliament” and insert

“the House of Commons, the Scottish Parliament, the Northern Ireland Assembly and the National Assembly for Wales”.

This would require the Secretary of State to report to the elected chambers across the UK with a responsibility for policies that can contribute to full employment.

[The Chair]

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:

Amendment 23, in clause 1, page 1, line 6, at end insert—

‘(1A) The Secretary of State will appear before a Committee in each of the Scottish Parliament, Northern Ireland Assembly and the National Assembly for Wales to answer questions about the report.”.

This would require the Secretary of State to appear before a committee in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland to answer questions about the full employment report.

Amendment 24, in clause 1, page 1, line 7, leave out subsection (2).

This would remove the provision that repeals the full employment reporting obligation at the end of the current Parliament.

[Hannah Bardell]

We seek support on the amendments because they are intended to increase the powers of the devolved institutions to ensure that the people whom we represent in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland in this Parliament are not overlooked by the UK Government. The amendments would increase the scrutiny functions of the devolved institutions on the reporting of the Secretary of State in relation to full employment and its definition. We in Scotland know the implications Government reports can have for policy decisions, and often the impact on devolved areas can be overlooked. May I speak on amendment 23 as well at this point?

[The Chair]

Yes, amendments 23 and 24.

[Hannah Bardell]

Amendment 23 is about the Secretary of State appearing before a Committee in the Scottish Parliament, the Northern Ireland Assembly and the National Assembly for Wales to answer questions about the report. The amendments in this group would ensure that Scotland, as well as Northern Ireland and Wales, was fully briefed on the full employment report, as they have a responsibility for policies that can contribute to full employment.

Finally, amendment 24 would leave out subsection (2) because we want to remove the provision that repeals the full employment reporting obligation at the end of the current Parliament. We feel strongly that clause 1 places a new duty on the Secretary of State to produce an annual report on progress towards full employment during the Parliament.

Amendment 22 is simply to ensure that the Secretary of State lays the report before the House of Commons, the Scottish Parliament, the Northern Ireland Assembly and the National Assembly for Wales. We welcome the reporting obligations in clause 1, as they ensure that the Government are progressing full employment and that the definition made by the Department is brought before all the devolved Administrations.

As we well know, unemployment is a UK-wide problem and employment challenges facing different parts of the UK can be different. It is vital that the Secretary of State represents the devolved institutions and recognises the challenges that the Bill will have for devolved areas dealing with unemployment.

Amendment 23 adds extra scrutiny function to the Bill to ensure that the Secretary of State will appear before a Committee to answer questions on the report within each devolved institution. As the definition of full employment is not clear, the amendment would ensure that, whatever definition is decided on, the devolved institutions will be able to hold the Secretary of State to account. We are concerned that the Secretary of State could use the term to mask under-employment by defining full employment in narrow terms. Office for National Statistics figures for 2014 put the number of zero-hours contracts at approximately 700,000. People in those positions worked an average of 25 hours a week, and one third of them would prefer more hours. It is vital that the devolved institutions can scrutinise the Secretary of State’s report in order to deal with unemployment effectively.

Amendment 24 would remove the provision that repeals the full employment reporting obligation at the end of the current Parliament. If the Government are serious about reporting unemployment in order to address it, they would not dissolve the reporting duty after one Parliament. We really cannot understand that. In the current uncertain economic times, the Government cannot predict what employment opportunities lie ahead for people across the UK. It is imperative that full employment reporting continues, as it will be a useful indicator for the Government and the devolved institutions to formulate policies that respond to the demands of unemployment. Finally, the continuation of a reporting duty means that the definition will be tested and refined. Oxfam has supported the retention of the obligation to report.

[Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)]

I listened with considerable interest to the hon. Lady propose amendments 22 to 24, which are interesting. Although she did not talk about this, I read the amendments in the context of the wider constitutional debate being played out in the passage of the Scotland Bill, which is also before the House and covers a number of matters relating to welfare reform. While I fully understand why she wants to promote the amendments—to expose more clearly the effectiveness of the Government’s strategies and to increase scrutiny of them—I think we are stepping into quite new territory in terms of some of the reporting arrangements and the obligation of Westminster Ministers to report to the devolved Parliaments and Assemblies, and to appear before their Committees.

We know that devolved matters are wholly the responsibility of devolved Parliaments. I expect them to be scrutinised there and for Ministers in those Parliaments to be held to account for them. However, reserved matters are rightly scrutinised in this Parliament by Members of Parliament from all parties. Indeed, I venture to suggest that if we pursue this argument too far, we may start to give succour to the English votes for English laws argument, which some of us are very unenthusiastic about.

While I understand the hon. Lady’s wish to shed more light on the Government’s policies, I question some of the implications of her amendments. That is not to say that I do not understand what she seeks to achieve, but I am keen to understand the constitutional consequences of proceeding with amendment 22.

Amendment 23 is also very interesting. I read it with real interest when the hon. Lady and her colleagues tabled it, and I went off to dig a little bit into the history of what it might be about. I am sure she knows this, but other Committee members may not: the Government have some form in relation to appearing before Committees in the Scottish Parliament. Attempts were made by the Scottish Parliament’s Welfare Reform Committee—perhaps the hon. Lady can confirm this—to bring Ministers from the Department for Work and Pensions before it between 2012 and 2014, in order for Members of the Scottish Parliament to quiz them about some of the provisions of what became the Welfare Reform Act 2012.

When the Convenor of the Scottish Welfare Reform Committee sought to invite the Secretary of State to the Committee, I am afraid to say that he received a rather dusty reply. On 12 December 2012, in a letter to the Convenor of that Committee, the Secretary of State said that he would not be coming, that as a Westminster Minister he was accountable first and foremost to the UK Parliament and, slightly tongue in cheek, he strongly encouraged the Scottish Committee to scrutinise the Scottish Government’s implementation of the UK legislation. I will not get into the private grief between the Department for Work and Pensions and the Scottish National party on that, but it was clear that the Secretary of State was alert to some of the constitutional questions I alluded to a few moments ago.

In defence of the Scottish Committee, I have to say that it did not take that lying down—indeed, I would not have expected it to. The saga ran and ran—there was a series of letters, which are fun to read if anyone has a few spare minutes. In 2012, 2013 and 2014, the Committee noted that UK Ministers from other Departments had been prepared to appear before Scottish parliamentary committees, so the matter rumbled on.

In the event, no willingness was shown on the part of Ministers from the immediate past Government to appear before the Scottish Welfare Reform Committee. Since then, we have moved into another set of changes to the constitutional arrangements on reserved matters with the ongoing proceedings of the Scotland Bill.

In this Bill, we have a complex patchwork of devolved and non-devolved matters. Indeed, this is probably the Bill to exemplify the difficulties that Mr Speaker will face in certifying whether a Bill or parts of a Bill will be subject to the provisions of English votes for English laws—we might use it as a case study as we proceed through each clause, Mr Streeter, if you will indulge us.

The Scotland Bill will create further complexity. We are in a period of some uncertainty about which welfare reform provisions will be devolved and which will obviously depend on Parliament’s will, and that legislation is far from completing its parliamentary passage. Labour has tabled several amendments to the Scotland Bill that I confidently expect us to consider on Report that propose further devolution of several welfare and employment matters to the Scottish Parliament. For example, it has long been our intention—my right hon. Friend the Member for East Ham talked a great deal about this in the previous Parliament—to devolve employment programmes such as the Work programme to the Scottish Parliament. We have developed our thinking in that field so that we now have amendments to the Scotland Bill that would also devolve the Access to Work programme, jobs guarantees programmes and employment programmes of less than one year’s duration.

There are question marks around amendments 22 and 23. They are interesting and I am delighted that the hon. Member for Livingston moved them for debate, but I would prefer to await developments on the Scotland Bill before arriving at a firm conclusion about what my party’s position might be on them. However, the hon. Lady is really on to something with amendment 24, which deals with what is effectively a sunset clause on the Secretary of State’s obligation to report on the full employment targets. Since I saw the SNP amendment and my mind became focused on that provision, I wondered why the Government drafted it. Will the Minister tell us in a few minutes that the Government are confident that, on full employment, by the end of this Parliament, “Job will be done”? As the hon. Lady said, we are keen to understand what the Minister means by full employment. That debate will be developed by my right hon. Friend the Member for East Ham and I know we are all very much looking forward to his erudite speech.

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[Priti Patel]

We are in constant discussions, quite rightly, on how we approach the implementation of the Smith commission recommendations through the Bill and so on. That dialogue is important, as is establishing good and sustained ways of working. The statutory duty to report on progress towards full employment extends across the whole United Kingdom, so it is right that the responsibility to report sits with the UK Parliament. It would therefore be inappropriate to lay reports in each of the other Parliaments and for the Secretary of State to attend various Committees in each of the devolved Administrations.

The clause is not about requiring the devolved Administrations to create new policies or take actions. Previous Governments have talked of achieving full employment, but this Government are the first to set out in legislation a clear commitment to report on progress made to achieving that aim. As it is a commitment made by this Government, it is right that we hesitate before binding the hands of future Governments to report on progress made towards that goal.

[Hannah Bardell]

I welcome the fact that the Minister is coming to Scotland. That is good news, but does she not recognise that, as the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston illustrated, it is very much down to individual Ministers whether they attend or not? A statutory obligation is extremely important, so that we can ensure consistency. I am glad that the Minister is attending but, unfortunately, we have a history of Ministers not willing to attend or co-operate. We talk about a respect agenda, and we feel that it is important to have a statutory obligation in legislation. The decisions made in Westminster on issues such as this affect people in the devolved Administrations, so it is only right and proper that the Government of the day report to the devolved Administrations on those issues.

[Priti Patel]

I thank the hon. Lady for her remarks. There is a clear commitment from this Government to work with the devolved Administrations, particularly with regard to the implementation of the Smith commission. Therefore it is not appropriate to put into legislation the statutory need for a Minister to respond and to come to meetings.

It is fair to say—certainly in my role, and regarding the Scotland Bill and the devolution of welfare—that there has been a clear and transparent way of working between the Department and the Scottish Administration. In particular, there has been support where support has been required and requested. That is a clear illustration of the mutual respect agenda and of how we are working together and supporting each other on the delivery of the Smith commission.

Full employment cannot be created by an Act of Parliament or by the Government alone. Achieving that objective depends on a range of factors, predominantly a strong economy and a strong partnership and working relationship with business, employers, communities and those that invest in skills, people and innovation. On that point, it is worth my reiterating that there was a clear manifesto commitment to achieve the aspiration of full employment and, particularly, to report on that over the lifetime of this Parliament. The Government are committed to doing that, so I urge the hon. Member for Livingston to withdraw the amendment.

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[The Chair]

It now falls to the mover of the amendment to say a few words, if she wishes, in response to what the Minister has said, and then to inform the Committee whether she wishes to withdraw the amendment or put it to a Division.

[Hannah Bardell]

Thank you, Mr Streeter. This has been an interesting debate. I heard some encouraging remarks from Labour Members, and I hear what the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston says about waiting for the Scotland Bill. However, I would say that, disappointingly, we have not seen any movement or support from the Government on the Scotland Bill. It is important that we have reporting mechanisms and commitments put down in legislation.

[Kate Green]

The hon. Lady is right that we have not yet seen a great deal of progress on the Scotland Bill, and it is difficult to predict whether that Bill will be overtaken by this one. It seems to have become stuck somewhere in the long grass. Does the hon. Lady agree, having rightly exposed this question this afternoon, that we might hope that Ministers will take note and accelerate the progress of the Scotland Bill? Does she also agree that if they fail to address the points that she has raised today, it would be a good idea to bring the issue back when we discuss this Bill on Report?

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[Hannah Bardell]

I hear what the hon. Lady says, but I feel strongly that the two are not necessarily mutually exclusive. I do not see any reason why we cannot have these reporting mechanisms in this Bill and still make progress on the Scotland Bill—I feel strongly about that.

I hear what the Minister says about mutual working, but I do not necessarily agree with everything that she says. Although the discussions between the devolved Administration in Scotland and the UK Government have been helpful, they have not been as productive as we would have liked.

It would be fair to say that the Smith commission fell short of the vow that was made just after the referendum, which was a cross-party effort under the banner of the Better Together campaign. We feel strongly that the Scotland Bill falls short of Smith. We did our best to bring the Scotland Bill up to the level of Smith with our amendments, but sadly we did not get the support that we sought from both sides of the House, although to be fair Labour did support us on some amendments.

For us, the amendments cover matters that are important to include in the Bill, and we will press them to Divisions.

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[Hannah Bardell]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his remarks. We have no problem with supporting the definition in the Opposition’s amendment, which supports the ambitious target for the UK of achieving the highest rate of employment in the G7—Oxfam made that comment just this month.

Amendment 106 requires the report on full employment to report on the quality of jobs—as the right hon. Gentleman said, we heard a lot about that in evidence to the Committee, both oral and written—and their distribution, and to give a breakdown of statistics for employees in those jobs. New clause 11 would put a duty on the Secretary of State to define job quality within six months of carrying out a public consultation on it—a public consultation is very important.

The intention behind our two measures is to ensure the quality of jobs created, so that they amount to decent work. According to Oxfam, the quality of work is central to alleviating poverty, particularly through the concept of decent work:

“‘Decent work’ includes fair pay, job security, mental health, recognition of overtime, work-life balance, job satisfaction and autonomy, safety, achievable work, skills development, and effective management.”

My apologies; that is not Oxfam but Unison—I would not want to misquote anyone.

It is deeply troubling that, increasingly, available jobs are not always reliable and therefore are not a long-lasting route out of poverty. As I mentioned earlier, the number and rise of zero-hours contracts, low-paid jobs with insufficient working hours, insecure contracts and often poor job progression can mean many working people are still trapped in poverty. Disabled people are more likely to be unemployed or in low-paid positions regardless of their qualifications. It is therefore vital that we measure where jobs are going and their quality to ensure we can identify gaps in employment and work to create quality full employment for everyone, to echo recent comments by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation.

It is of further concern to us that in a 2014 report, “Pay progression: Understanding the Barriers for the Lowest Paid”, the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development reported that, as many who have contributed to our evidence sessions have said, women in particular are estimated to comprise up to 64% of low-paid workers. The measures we have tabled would help us bring forward decent work measures to identify where the Government should really direct their policy efforts to achieve full employment, deliver equality and challenge barriers at work, in order to lift the poorest out of poverty.

Unison has called for

“a commitment from the Government to encourage employers to provide decent jobs, wages and work practices”,

and has stated that that should be measured. The amendment and new clause would bring forward that vision and ensure that the Government defined their duty within six months of the Bill’s enactment. We feel strongly that having a commission to look at this issue will give us the opportunity to provide a definition. Without one, it will be hard to measure job quality. We will press the measures to a Division.

[Emily Thornberry (Islington South and Finsbury) (Lab)]

I found the evidence on this clause very interesting. It speaks to our modern times. In the ’70s, everyone knew what full employment was. It meant five-day-a-week of nine-to-five jobs in which it was clear what someone’s role was and they had security, with a pension and a family wage. We have moved a very long way from that.

We heard earlier from the chief executive of the Child Poverty Action Group that it is important to have child poverty figures that make sense in order to keep Government honest. I am concerned about the honesty behind the clause—what it really says and what it is really doing about making matters clear to the public. In 2015, we as a society want full employment, but what we see that as is not the vision of the 1940s or 1950s. It is a different type of full employment.

The reality is that a large number of people work flexibly. Many of them work flexibly out of choice, because it helps them to balance their work and family life, but many more work flexibly out of the choice of their employer. The increasing and unfair demand for people—particularly the young—to work on zero-hours contracts undermines our sense of security, of wellbeing and of having a place. Part of being in employment is that we feel we have a role. If someone is employed on a zero-hours contract, they are a beggar; they are there at the sufferance of their employer. They could be called to work any hours or no hours, and yet they have been bought.

Someone in “full employment” could be working a ridiculous amount. If the Government are talking about full employment as being people in jobs, and those jobs are employment as defined by the Office for National Statistics, I imagine that someone could be working 20 hours or 20 minutes a month and still be in employment. The Minister would then happily get up and tell the country that there was full employment, when many people were working hardly any hours, did not know how many hours they would work, were working with great insecurity and were bouncing along at the bottom of the employment ladder. They might work for a few hours in an ice cream van if the sun shines. If it rains, they will not work for two weeks. They will not work in the winter, and yet in some respects they would be in full employment, at least for part of it. That is not what people imagine as full employment.

I do not know who thought of this, but let us say it was George Osborne, just to pick a name off the top of my head. Let us say he was wanting to—I don’t know—manipulate things, make political points and try to fool the public. I may be wrong, and I will listen with interest to what the Minister says about this, but it might be part of the red Tories agenda to appeal to the working class. They want to have someone getting up and saying, “Do you know what, guys? We’re in full employment.”

The fact is that people will be sitting at home, looking at this and knowing that their friends and family are not in what they believe to be full employment. They are not in employment that brings home a wage with which they can support themselves, let alone their families. We know that because of the rise of zero-hours contracts. We know from friends and family that there are people in employment who certainly do not earn enough money to live. We also know that because of the rise in tax credits. The Government are dealing with the cost of tax credits not by ensuring that people no longer need to rely on them because they are in what I define as full employment, but by starving the third child. That does not seem to be entirely straightforward.

For the Bill to begin with the Secretary of State getting up and telling us all that people are in full employment when we know that they are not at all seems to lay the grounds of what the Bill is really about—it is about political posturing. It is a heartless and nasty piece of legislation. It undermines the very support of the poorest and most vulnerable, and it begins by having a laugh: it says that they are going to be in full employment, when we know they will not be.

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[Priti Patel]

When it comes to the principle of work, it is about having long-term employment opportunities. It is not about being based on hours. We all know that work has great value for individual health and wellbeing. The hon. Lady made points about quality jobs. There is no universal definition of quality jobs.

[Hannah Bardell]

Does the Minister therefore agree that our proposals to have a commission to find a reasonable definition of “decent work” is sensible so that we have a benchmark that we can all be proud of? Without that, it is clear that the Government will hide behind the very basic figures of 20 minutes’ or an hour’s work a week and mask the real issue.

[Priti Patel]

No, I do not agree with the hon. Lady. In addition to having work, being in a job and being in employment, it is about the quality of life that that job gives. That means different things to different people. For some, it could be about salaries but it is also about self-confidence, self-worth and self-esteem. It may be the opportunity to work for the first time if they have not had the opportunity to do so and have now had skills training, or for a variety of reasons.

We will consider what further analysis can be included in the annual report including how the level, distribution and composition of employment have evolved over time. We feel that that is a more transparent approach, rather than trying to summarise a varied and complex picture into a simple measure of a definition of job, work or job quality.

Since 2010, two thirds of the increase in employment has been across a range of sectors, in particular managerial, professional and associate professional occupations, which command greater salaries. The growth in employment has been dominated by full-time employment, accounting for nearly all of the annual rise in the number of people in work. There are a variety of factors, which we will consider through further analysis in the annual report so that we have a better picture, rather than just one measure. The UK has one of the lowest proportions of temporary workers in the EU. The proportion is less than half the EU average and is lower than that of Germany, France and Denmark. We are talking about employment and how we work across Government to achieve full employment, but we are also working with employers, schools and colleges. Employers communicate with Members of Parliament on a regular basis, and they all tell us that it is about individuals having a range of soft skills and how we work to support individuals in enhancing their skills, be they soft skills, technical skills or vocational skills. That particularly applies in the case of younger workers. My Department, as I have highlighted many times, is working across Government, not just with the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills on apprenticeships but with the Department for Education, to focus on training and engaging young people in particular so that we can all work collectively to achieve the objective of full employment.

I urge the right hon. Member for East Ham to withdraw his amendment.

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We heard a lot from our witnesses about the kind of employment support that would be effective, the improvements that are needed and the lack of support that disabled people receive. We also heard about what good work would look like for disabled people. It is not very different from the characteristics of good work in respect of non-disabled people that my right hon. Friend the Member for East Ham outlined a few moments ago. However, we need to acknowledge that extra support will be needed for disabled people to enable them to get into or return to work and deal with the specific barriers and experiences that they will have in the labour market. We must ensure that they have a chance to work.

[Hannah Bardell]

I commend the hon. Lady on a great speech. I agree with much of what she says. Remploy was one of the organisations that gave evidence. Although it is now successful, it previously had funding pulled by the Government, who took away vital opportunities. In Scotland, hundreds of disabled people lost the opportunity to work. The Scottish Government intervened and have now developed an organisation called Haven PTS, which I have visited personally. Does the hon. Lady agree that we need investment in such organisations so that employment opportunities are out there for people with disabilities?

[Kate Green]

I have never been a purist on Remploy. It seems there is a place for such employment support for some people; it helps with their sense of dignity and pride. That has in many cases been taken away from those who lost their jobs on the closure of the factories. Their chances of returning to work have been pretty poor.

Even more concerning is what happened when the Government closed the Remploy factories on the back of the independent report that they had commissioned from Liz Sayce. It was said that the money could be better applied to giving disabled people a chance in the mainstream labour market, and we expected that that money would go into, for example, the Access to Work programme, which my hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark mentioned. In the previous Parliament, the Select Committee on Work and Pensions found that it appeared no such thing had occurred. Indeed, it seemed impossible to find out what had happened to money released from the closure of the Remploy factories. That is hugely regrettable. It does not seem to have done much to benefit those who had lost their jobs as a result of the closure. I very much share the hon. Lady’s concerns.

We heard from many of our witnesses about the need for personalised specialist support designed and delivered more locally. Kirsty McHugh told us about that last week, and she highlighted the importance of the adviser relationship and building confidence. We heard a lot about the need for a better payment mechanism for providers. For example, Matt Oakley said in his evidence that he thought the Government might need to look again at the attachment fee for providers who were supporting disabled people with programmes to get them back to work.

Will the Minister say something about what has happened with Work Choice, a specialist programme for disabled people that witnesses in our evidence session last week were positive about? We know that the proportion of people who go into work having been on Work Choice is 10 times the proportion of disabled people who go into work having been on the Work programme, but it is underused. I have been told that in my constituency the payment structures are being changed to make it less likely that providers will work with those with the highest barriers to labour market participation, who are the group that we understood Work Choice was intended to help.

We also heard, and have had written evidence, about the importance of joining up the health and social care agendas with the employment agenda to facilitate a return to work. For example, people need flexible health provision so that they can get an appointment with a doctor or a specialist at a time that does not clash with when they wants to go to work, and they need social care that helps them go to work. Perhaps somebody can arrive to help them get up that bit earlier in the morning, so that they have time to prepare themselves and go out to work. Although the integration of health and social care is welcome, I suggest to the Government that the missing bit of the jigsaw, if I may suggest this to the Government, is employment. Joining them up would facilitate and maximise the chances of people moving into work. We can also question whether the criteria by which local authorities are required to provide social care should include access to employment.

Routes to work are important. Later we will debate participation in apprenticeships, internships and traineeships, and we also heard that it would be very important for the Government to act as an exemplar and a good commissioner. Self-employment has been raised.