“Get Britain Working” White Paper

Helen Whately Excerpts

Tuesday 26th November 2024 Commons Chamber

[Helen Whately (Faversham and Mid Kent) (Con)]

I thank the Secretary of State for advance sight of her statement. The Conservatives are the party of work and aspiration—[Interruption.] In the decade after we took over from Labour, we drove down unemployment—[Interruption.]

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)]

Order.

[Helen Whately]

In the decade after we took over from Labour, we drove down unemployment and economic inactivity year after year, including youth unemployment, which went down by 400,000 after the mess we inherited from the last Labour Government. During the pandemic, we took unprecedented action to protect jobs and livelihoods, but since the pandemic we have faced a new and difficult challenge in this country: rising economic inactivity, particularly among young people. In government, we were tackling that. I know that, because as a Health Minister I was working on it. I am delighted that the right hon. Lady and the Health Secretary visited one of our WorkWell pilots just the other day. I was working on our fit note reforms, our youth offer, which helped a million young people, and our universal support scheme, which I now hear the Secretary of State has quietly rebranded as her own Connect to Work scheme.

Far from being cross that the Government are pinching our ideas, I welcome the right hon. Lady taking our work forward. She is making the right noises about how important it is to fix this area. Economic inactivity is a big problem for our economy and for each and every individual who risks being written off to a life on benefits. Knowing that, I am disappointed by the substance of what she is announcing today, because far from matching her rhetoric, it appears to be little more than a pot of money for local councils, some disparaging language about the work of jobcentres and a consultation that will be launched in the spring. Given that the Government have had 14 years to prepare for this moment, is that it?

Where are the reforms to benefits that will make material savings to the taxpayer, such as the £12 billion we committed to save in our manifesto? Where are the reforms to fit notes, which we had handed over, ready to go? Where is the Secretary of State’s plan for reforming the work capability assessments? She has banked the £3 billion of savings from our plan, but has failed to set out her own. Her big announcement is making benefits for young people conditional. Did she forget that they already are?

The fact is that the Secretary of State has dodged the tough decisions. Every day that she kicks the can down the road costs the taxpayer millions of pounds. At this rate, spending on sickness benefits will rise to £100 billion by the end of this Parliament. They are taking that money from farmers, from pensioners and from businesses. To get people off benefits, we need jobs for them to go into. Those are the very jobs that businesses are saying, since the Budget, they will no longer be hiring for. While the right hon. Lady tries to get people into work, her Chancellor is busy destroying jobs—50,000 jobs lost from her first Budget alone.

If the Secretary of State wants to get more 18-year-olds into work, she should have a word with her Chancellor, who has made it so that from April it will cost £5,000 more for a business to employ them. She should have a word with her Business Secretary, whose Employment Rights Bill will, according to the Government’s own impact assessment, make it less likely for employers to take on young people. The Government cannot solve this problem on their own. Businesses are the engine of our economy that create jobs for people to do. It is telling that I cannot see a single business representative on the new Labour Market Advisory Board.

I did hear the right hon. Lady talk about some new partnerships, but this announcement is such a song and dance about so little that I feel sure she will qualify for one of her own Royal Shakespeare Company apprenticeships. She has kicked the can so far down the road that her new partner, the Premier League, is sure to be on the phone by the end of the day.

May I for a moment cut through the word soup of the announcement? It is time for the right hon. Lady to tell the House some facts. How many people will it help into work, and by when? What is the total she is saving the taxpayer? When will she reach her 80% employment target? What return on investment is she expecting from these plans? How will she measure her success or failure? This is so far from the bold grasping of the nettle that she is making it out to be and that this country needs for our economy, for taxpayers and for the millions of people missing out on the purpose and freedom that work brings. It is simply not good enough.

[Liz Kendall]

May I say gently to the hon. Lady, who I personally like and have a great deal of time for, that the only people who dodge difficult decisions on welfare are the Conservatives? The facts speak for themselves. By the end of this Parliament, the Office for Budget Responsibility says that 420,000 more people will be on health-related universal credit benefits, rising from a third now to a half at the end of the Parliament. That is her Government’s legacy. One in eight of all our young people are not in education, employment or training. We have seen a doubling in the number of young people out of work due to long-term sickness and a doubling of young people out of work because of mental health problems. After 14 years in government, who does she think is responsible for that? I am afraid that the truth is staring her in the face: the Conservatives are now the party of welfare, and Labour is the party of work.

The hon. Lady talks about British businesses. I know only too well the pressures that many businesses face. We have spoken to the CBI, the Federation of Small Businesses and the British Chambers of Commerce, and they are keen to work with us on our proposals. They know that their members have hundreds of thousands of vacancies that they need to fill, one in three of which is because of skills gaps. They know that 300,000 people every single year fall out of work due to a health condition. They need support to try to tackle that problem. I believe that the Department for Work and Pensions and jobcentres should serve businesses’ needs and aspirations, not be the place of last resort. That is precisely what our reforms will deliver.

Finally, the biggest challenge we face today is the growing number of people out of work or at risk of falling out of work due to health problems or a disability. Our entire employment and benefits system is simply not geared up to deal with that. We will take examples of good practice from wherever we find them, but we have got to go much further. We need big reforms, not easy slogans that say people just felt a bit too bluesy to work, which do nothing to help people get to grips with the real issues in their lives. We are facing up to our responsibilities and the difficult decisions necessary to get Britain working again. It is time the hon. Lady and her party did the same.