James Gray
Main Page: James Gray (Conservative - North Wiltshire)Department Debates - View all James Gray's debates with the Department for Work and Pensions
(8 years, 10 months ago)
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I absolutely concur with my hon. Friend. On that point, do you believe that jobcentres, which do good work in my constituency and others, should be encouraged to promote apprenticeships as a way of tackling the issues and figures that you have raised?
The hon. Member for Norwich North (Chloe Smith) has raised them; I have not.
You are quite right, Mr Gray. I am sorry.
In London, we have created 220,000 apprenticeships since 2010, which have introduced people into a world of work. Perhaps in due course the Minister will comment on apprenticeships.
Order. I intend to call the first of the three wind-ups at 5.25 pm. I have about six people trying to catch my eye, so, while there is no official time limit, it would be helpful if Members could keep their speeches to five minutes or less.
I am about to finish, so I would rather not, if that is okay.
The Prince’s Trust—we are talking about Prince Charles, the heir to the throne—youth index uses a measure of 16 to 25, another different definition of what counts as young. One fifth of the respondents for the index said that they regularly fall apart emotionally and that they suffer from anxiety. It found all those mental health issues, so we do not want to be stoking things up.
There is much to agree with in the YMCA report. If we pick up any modern humorous dictionary of quotations, we will find many phrases about young people and youthful folly, such as, “You are only young once.” One such quote is from Oscar Wilde, who said:
“Youth is wasted on the young.”
We do not want to be in a situation where youth is wasted.
Order. Can I say that if hon. Members want to be called to speak, it is quite helpful if they stand up?
Victoria Borwick, I was planning to call you because you wrote to the Speaker to indicate that you wished to speak.
No, I made my point in an intervention. Thank you, Mr Gray.
Mr Green and Ms Solloway, neither of you wrote to the Speaker; nor, indeed, had you been standing up. However, in a spirit of openness and cheerfulness, I call Chris Green.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gray, and to have the opportunity to sum up on behalf of my party. I congratulate the hon. Member for Norwich North (Chloe Smith) on securing this debate and on what I thought was a fair and balanced speech. I admire her positivity, although her experiences and those of her constituents are not necessarily shared elsewhere.
I share the hon. Lady’s respect for jobcentre staff. I will quote some of the findings of the YMCA that perhaps point to the idea that some of the issues being experienced arise from policy rather than staffing. The YMCA report points out that although hardship payments are available to sanctioned claimants, in practice
“YMCA know that in many cases claimants are not being made aware of the availability of such schemes”.
The YMCA found that young people were not being given adequate information about sanctions, including support on how to avoid being sanctioned, explanations of why they have been sanctioned and practical advice on what to do once they have been. YMCA research on the effects of sanctions on vulnerable young people found that 84% had cut back on food as a result of being sanctioned. That is a troubling statistic.
My hon. Friend the Member for Lanark and Hamilton East (Angela Crawley) made an excellent contribution. Youth unemployment is indeed a tragedy, and we must recognise young people’s potential to contribute to our society and economy. She pointed out the narrow-mindedness of pushing young people towards work through sanctions. We should believe in our young people. She drew on the example of free higher education in Scotland, which provides real opportunities for young people, and made it clear that higher education should be about ability to learn, not ability to pay. I completely agree with that sentiment.
As for the remarks of the hon. Member for Mid Derbyshire (Pauline Latham), I laud the fact that youth unemployment is dropping in some areas, but I am not sure that all those jobs will be in full-time, secure and well-paid work. So many new jobs in recent years have been insecure, low-paid zero-hours contracts. The Government must report on the quality of new jobs. I agree completely with the remarks of the hon. Member for Ealing Central and Acton (Dr Huq) on sanctions; I will say more on that shortly.
The hon. Member for Bolton West (Chris Green) pointed out that jobcentres are not sufficiently flexible to meet the needs of those relying on them for support, which I agree with absolutely. The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) made, as ever, a thoughtful contribution. I agree that young people are not feeling the benefit of economic recovery as yet and are not feeling supported. Perhaps that is being worsened by the Welfare Reform and Work Bill being debated on the Floor of the House at the moment. The hon. Member for Derby North (Amanda Solloway) said that jobcentres are not the only route to work, pointing to education and apprenticeships. On that point I again echo the remarks of my hon. Friend the Member for Lanark and Hamilton East.
The debate has been useful and worth while, and in general very positive, but we must point to the facts as they are. The DWP is failing workers and jobseekers with its dangerous welfare reforms and sanctions regimes. The reforms are already going to have a devastating effect on young people in general and will have the combined effect of hitting young jobseekers very hard. An increasing number of young homeless people are being sanctioned. Those who are vulnerable are being asked to comply with unrealistic conditions, resulting in sanctions that only deepen their disadvantage. I draw on the evidence already presented by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, on the Trussell Trust report on food poverty from June 2014 and on the March 2015 Crisis report on homelessness, which says that the number of JSA sanctions has almost tripled from 2.5 sanctions per hundred claimants per month in the year ending 2001 to seven per hundred per month in the year ending 2014.
In conclusion, it is clear that something is going fundamentally wrong with how the DWP deals with young people seeking work. In my view and in the view of my colleagues, it is time to devolve to Scotland all social security functions and the resources to support that, so that we can plot a different path from the punitive and marginalising approach currently deployed by this Government.
It may be helpful for colleagues to know that the official time for the end of the debate, owing to injury time in a previous debate, is 5.53 pm, although I am told there will probably be a Division in the main Chamber at 5.45 pm.