Jobs and Work

John Howell Excerpts

Wednesday 11th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[John Howell (Henley) (Con)]

Like the Secretary of State, let me start by concentrating on today’s good employment figures, especially those from Henley. We have seen a 60% drop in the unemployment figures, giving us a lower level of unemployment than before the general election of 2010. The figure itself stands at 371, which makes us the third best performing constituency in the UK—the two constituencies that beat us probably have more sheep than people. It is 21 lower than in April 2014, and 209 lower than a year ago. Crucially, the number of young unemployed remains around the 20 mark for the two towns of Thame and Henley.

The shadow Secretary of State attacked this Government’s long-term economic plan, but these figures show that the plan is working, and the good news that there are 2 million more people in work since the election reinforces that point. The news is exceptionally good. In my constituency, we would have to go back more than six years to find such good figures. It is a remarkable achievement and I am proud of the way in which business has reacted locally to help young people get into jobs. These remain difficult times for families who are still feeling the impact of the recession, but the foundations for a broad-based recovery are now in place. I am keen to see living standards continue to rise so that we can build on those foundations, and we need to keep growing the economy and creating more jobs.

The problem for me is that there are too few people who are unemployed to have a meaningful jobs club. I found a way around that, which was to have a club to encourage and teach businesses how to keep their employees rather than my trying to find placements for them.

In looking at how this Queen’s Speech continues to build on the good work already started in the long-term economic plan, I want to put my finger on one measure in particular, which is national insurance contributions. Cutting businesses’ national insurance contributions by £2,000 has taken 450,000 firms out of paying employer NIC all together. That follows on from increasing the secondary threshold—the level of earnings above which employers start to pay national insurance for an employee.

We were prevented from sharing in the national insurance holiday introduced in the first Budget as it was regionally oriented away from the south-east, but the £2,000 relief introduced in Budget 2013, the employment allowance, was a welcome addition. Will Labour now confirm that it will not increase that tax again?

The national insurance contributions Bill heralded in the Queen’s Speech is required to simplify the collection of NICs payable by the self-employed and to tackle certain avoidance measures. I urge Ministers to look carefully at the situation in which a small proportion of people pay their class 2 NICs and are not in self-assessment. They need to be able to continue to pay their class 2 NICs.

I was pleased to see that the avoidance measures tackle the situation in which people hang on to the cash in question through long disputes and it will stop them gaining a potentially significant cash-flow advantage. I urge Ministers to ensure that the scheme is tightly drawn so that it will not catch innocent providers.

I also want to touch on the small business, enterprise and employment Bill. Small businesses make a huge contribution to the UK economy and account for around half of UK jobs. One of the areas that the Bill tackles is that of employment tribunals. I understand that it tries to prevent their postponement. Employment tribunals often suffer unnecessary delays, and one of the contributing factors is the frequent requests for postponements at short notice. That has a big impact on the costs to business. It is also necessary to ensure that the rights of claimants are protected, and I was pleased to see the idea of a penalty for non-payment of employment tribunal awards.

One of the other sections of this Bill is the need to ensure that employers pay their workers at least the national minimum wage. The enforcement of that measure is very serious. We are already the first Government to name and shame employers. The number of employers penalised last year almost doubled to more than 600, and the new measure is a logical extension of that.

Finally, on apprenticeship reforms, anything that can be done to ease access to apprenticeships and increase our understanding of them has to be welcome. I am thinking of short, simple standards rather than long, complex frameworks to characterise apprenticeships. It will also be necessary to increase their quality through higher expectations of English and maths and to raise aspirations

The Queen’s Speech contains those and many other measures, which will help to boost jobs and work. It will help small businesses access the public procurement market and hopefully lead to more reductions in unemployment in my constituency.