Welfare Reform and Work Bill (Fourth sitting)

Jess Phillips Excerpts

Tuesday 15th September 2015 Public Bill Committees

[Stephen Timms]

I am grateful to the Minister for what she has told us about the data that will be published, which does pick up on the points in the first part of amendment 75. I am disappointed, however, that she was unable to confirm to my hon. Friend that we will be able to find out the number of people with education, health and care plans entering into apprenticeships, but I hope that the Minister will have another look to see whether that can be provided.

The Minister is a bit complacent on the quality point. I accept that it is not really a matter for her—it is for her colleagues in BIS—but we heard during our evidence from the British Chambers of Commerce, no less, that the only way the 3 million target will be achieved is by watering down quality. The mechanism that we proposed would have dealt with that. I will not press the amendment now, but I hope that she might commend our idea to her colleagues. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

[Jess Phillips (Birmingham, Yardley) (Lab)]

I beg to move amendment 99, in clause 2, page 2, line 5, at end insert

“and that 20,000 of these apprenticeships are taken up by children and young persons leaving care.”

To amend the apprenticeships target to require that 20,000 of the three million apprenticeships are taken up by children and young people leaving care.

[The Chair]

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:

Amendment 103, in clause 2, page 2, line 5, at end insert

“and that a specified proportion of the three million apprenticeships are entered into by people with special educational needs or disabilities.

‘(2A) For the purpose of subsection (2) the Secretary of State shall, by regulation, specify the proportion of apprenticeships that must be entered into by people with special educational needs or disabilities for the target to be met.

(2B) The Secretary of State must lay before Parliament in each reporting period a report setting out how they plan to meet the apprenticeship target as it relates to people with special educational needs or disabilities.”

To require the Government to ensure that a specific proportion of apprenticeships are taken up by persons with special educational needs or disabilities for its apprenticeship target to be met and to require the Secretary of State to report on how they intend to meet that target.

Amendment 100, in clause 2, page 2, line 29, at end insert—

‘(5) In this section “children and young persons leaving care” has the same meaning as in the Children (Leaving Care) Act 2000.”

This amendment is consequential on amendment 99, to define the term “children and young persons leaving care”.

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[Jess Phillips]

As I have not been feeling very well, I beg the Committee’s indulgence if I have to run out at any point. Actually, the Committee has made me feel a little better, so thanks everyone.

As my hon. Friends have said, we welcome the Government’s commitment to create 3 million apprenticeships by March 2020. I like the idea that the Prime Minister has 2020 vision, as stated by the Minister, but I am unsure that I have it right now. When done well, apprenticeships have huge potential to transform the lives of vulnerable young people through a combination of college and work.

I want to lay out why the amendment matters by describing a case study that fell into my lap this week—I promise the Committee that it is real. Since I have been on this Committee, I keep asking everybody I meet what benefits they are on and what is happening to them, and a woman came into my surgery on Friday with a housing problem. She had a private landlord who was a bit rogue, and she needed help getting on to the council housing list. She was my age and had seven children. If anyone thinks that that is not a hard-working family, I advise them to stay at home with any number of children. She had already been hit by the benefits cap, and was no longer receiving any help to pay her family’s rent.

As I am a member of this Committee, I thought that I would ask her some questions about the effect that the benefits cap had had on her life and do a bit of evidence gathering, but she was absolutely not interested in talking to me about her benefits and how they had been reduced. All she wanted to talk to me about was how she wanted to work when her youngest started school the following year. She told me how she had had a tough life. She grew up in the care system and had 32 placements. She wanted to be a teacher, or at least a teaching assistant. She had literally no idea how to start, so I simply talked her through what I might do if I were in her situation.

This woman is my peer. She is a mum the same age as me, but the gulf between us is enormous. Like her, I went to primary school for seven years and then secondary school. I have a nice, stable life. I was afforded the chance to spend my early adult years studying, living off my parents, working in all sorts of jobs, building experience, building me as an adult, making my chances and finding my path. She has had absolutely none of that—not because she is idle or lazy, but because she did not have the same chance that all of us in this room have had or the chance we would ever want to give our children.

The importance of the amendment is clear. Where the state has loco parentis for a child or young person, it must mean just that. We must treat the children in our care exactly as we would treat our own children and as we expected our parents to treat us.

I welcome the policy on apprenticeships. However, in its current form it is unlikely to benefit young people such as the woman I described in my surgery who are facing the greatest challenges, including those who have been in the care system. I contacted Barnardo’s, which is the national leader in working with care leavers, for information. It told me that the young people it supports struggle to obtain apprenticeships, often due to the entry requirements, which may include five A to C grades at GCSE.

As in the case study I outlined, school education is often disrupted for care leavers due to multiple placements. Combined with the impact of traumatic early experiences, that means that they are much less likely to achieve academically at the same rate as their peers—any of us in this room. One consequence of that is that 34% of all care leavers are not in education, employment or training at the age of 19, compared with 15.5% of 18-year-olds in the general population. That is nearly double—in fact, it is more than double; I will be good at maths one day. We are calling on the Government to amend the Bill to change the definition of the apprenticeship target by specifying that 20,000 apprenticeships will be reserved for young people who have been in the care system.

This cannot just be about numbers; we must also recognise the difficulties faced and act as any parent would—as my parents did, and as I act. These special apprenticeships should come with appropriate support to assist young people who have been in the care system overcome any barriers to the workplace, and employers should receive larger reimbursements to cover additional costs. There are many innovative schemes. As we heard in the evidence session on the very first day, the level of support given to people in these environments is so important. We must not exclude young people who struggled at school but who have the potential to achieve qualifications with the right support. That is crucial if we are going to give these young people a chance.

I also call on the Government to amend the Bill to specify additional information that must be included in the Secretary of State’s progress report on meeting the apprenticeship target. That information should include not just the uptake but the outcomes of apprenticeships for young people who have been in the care system.

Anybody who has ever worked with young, vulnerable people, as I have for many years, will know that there is a problem when they start work and begin to lose their housing benefit. How the Government allocate housing benefit and whom they protect in the cuts will make a big difference to those young people. When a vulnerable young person begins work, they start to lose their benefits. Vulnerable young people’s work is often unstable, chaotic and not well paid, so there is a balancing act for care leavers between wages and stable tenancies. Remember they have no mum and dad to fall back on; we are relying on the Government to be their mum and dad.

A really good example in my constituency of how to do that well is something special that a youth homelessness organisation called St Basils is doing. It has the live and work partnership with the Sandwell and West Birmingham Hospitals NHS Trust in a community response to youth homelessness, which is an innovative scheme providing 27 apprenticeships for young people, including care leavers, who are homeless or at risk of homelessness throughout Birmingham and Sandwell. The trust has provided a block of apartments that were previously used as staff accommodation but are no longer in use. St Basils, with the help of partner Keepmoat Regeneration and an empty homes capital grant, has completed the refurbishment of the accommodation to provide on-site shared accommodation for the apprentices.

St Basils is managing the accommodation and supporting the young people in their homes—that support, as I have outlined, is so important—and the trust is providing a range of apprenticeship opportunities. A pre-apprenticeship programme is being funded by Health Education West Midlands, delivered by University Hospitals Birmingham. That particular innovation is a scheme in which the young people live benefit-free, as I am sure the Minister is delighted to hear. It is something we all want. The funding and the support structure have been developed to ensure that young people can have an opportunity to live and work without recourse to welfare benefits.

To meet concerns about housing benefit for under-21s, people getting on to apprenticeships and ensuring that we are doing our best for care leavers, there are innovative schemes to give care leavers—the most vulnerable people in our society—a real chance. The scheme that I have described recognises exactly what I am asking the Government for in my amendment. It takes a community to bring up a child or young person. That is exactly the sort of brilliant and innovative scheme that the Government should consider when looking at care leavers and apprenticeships. The amendment would give that vulnerable group impetus and show them commitment. The Government should do that, because it is exactly what a mum and dad would do.

[Neil Coyle]

I rise to speak to amendment 103, which specifies that the apprenticeship target of 3 million apprenticeships should include a specific target related to the number of apprenticeships undertaken by people with special educational needs and disabilities. The amendment is a probing one and links to some earlier discussions, so I will try not to repeat anything.

I have three quick points to make. The Government have an ambitious target of 3 million apprenticeships, but disabled people and their organisations think that a sub-target ought to be set for that under-represented group of young people. The Minister has already answered that some of the information is available, so no burden arises from the amendment. I will be intrigued to hear why specifically the situation could not be reported on or monitored, or a target provided. If the information is known, please report on it.

In addition, as has been mentioned, that reporting could help the Government meet the broader and commendable target to reduce the employment gap for disabled people. We have already talked about the statistics for disabled people and employment overall: disabled people are a third less likely to be in employment, and the employment gap represents some 2.2 million disabled people. My hon. Friend the Member for Stretford and Urmston referred to disabled people being four times more likely to be unemployed at the age of 26, which is evidence of the need for such targeting. Overall, disabled young people are twice as likely to be NEET.

The Minister mentioned that the number of disabled people in work had risen in the past couple of years—I think that was the time period—but in the past five years the percentage of working-age disabled people has fallen from 53% to 48%. Again, some additional emphasis and focus on ensuring that disabled people have opportunities would be welcome.

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[The Chair]

It is Ms Phillips’ amendment; she is not yet a right hon., but it will not be long.

[Jess Phillips]

It is a matter of time, isn’t it, Chair?

I will come back on some of the things that the Minister has said. I welcome her concerns. I will send my constituent to her, as she is keen to get her into work. Although I understand what she says about targets and the policy being employer-led, there are a lot of things that other Government Departments, as well as hers, could potentially do to try to reach targets in both areas. I welcome that, so I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 2 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 3

Support for troubled families: reporting obligation

[Stephen Timms]

I beg to move amendment 4, in clause 3, page 2, line 46, at end insert—

‘(2A) The matters by which the progress made by a household that receives relevant support shall be measured under subsection (1)(b) include whether a member of the household is in employment.”

This requires one of the factors which is used to measure whether a household receive support is making progress is whether or a not a member of the household is employed.