Youth Employment

John Howell Excerpts

Wednesday 6th December 2017 Westminster Hall

[Gillian Keegan]

Yes, I do agree. As we would say in business, that is a nice problem to have.

Programmes such as “Get into”, which is run by the Prince’s Trust, are fantastic for those who underachieve at school. The scheme works by getting young people on to a four-week placement across a range of industries. It provides an opportunity that for many is a vital life chance, with almost a quarter of those in the programme having been unemployed for more than two years. Many large companies—for example, Accenture, Arvato, and HP—now offer young people opportunities to get into the workplace via the “Get into” programme run by the Prince’s Trust.

One participant, Michelle, was physically and sexually abused for years, and understandably suffered from depression and started offending. After going on the programme, she said:

“Without the Trust’s support, I would have carried on being self-destructive, with no future to look forward to. Instead I’m happy, sociable and I’m actually excited about where my life is going.”

Her words highlight the importance of getting young people into work and giving them the opportunity to build self-esteem and purpose.

[John Howell (Henley) (Con)]

Would my hon. Friend recommend that prisons offer more apprenticeships? They have to provide a work focus for their prisoners, and it would be extremely useful if they offered apprenticeships as part of that.

[Gillian Keegan]

That is an excellent point. I recently visited Wormwood Scrubs, and I think that would be a fantastic programme to help people who, ultimately, have just taken the wrong path in life, but really do want to rejoin the workplace upon leaving prison.

Last Monday, I went to St Pancras church in Chichester, which runs a breakfast for some of the 80 homeless people and rough-sleepers in the city. There I met a young girl who has been through the care system and now finds herself without a roof over her head. She feels that she lacks the experience and support to get into work. Some 24% of those between the ages of 16 and 18 who have been in care are categorised as not in education, employment or training. That is why programmes such as “Choose Work”, run by Chichester District Council, are so important. They help people to access work experience, helping them on to the first rung of the ladder. I am also delighted to say that the young girl I met on my visit is now in supported housing.

One area of concern is wage stagnation. Figures for 22 to 29 year-olds suggest a decline of 5.5% in real-term wages, compared with 2008. Clearly, the effects of the financial crisis are still present. The Government’s policies on the minimum wage and raising the tax thresholds have gone some way to protect those on the lowest incomes; however, the more skills and qualifications one has, the better the wage, so we must enable young people to upskill and increase their earnings and living standards.

The Government’s role is to help people develop. As the proverb says:

“Be not afraid of growing slowly, be afraid only of standing still.”

To ensure that does not happen, the Government have launched several schemes to bring about greater youth opportunity. The adult education budget, for example, provides free training to those who are over the age of 19 and unemployed, up to and including level 2 qualifications. All that is arranged through the jobcentre. Similarly, the youth engagement fund, launched in 2014, aims to improve education outcomes and employability for disadvantaged young people. More generally, education is diversifying, with the first three T-levels now launched, supported by a further £500 million a year, once those programmes are fully rolled out. They will provide yet another path to a career for young people.

The Government do need to do more for some groups, such as those with a disability. Figures from 2016 show that the youth employment rate is only 38% in those groups. I recently met a constituent whose son Josh has autism. She managed to get him on a work experience programme in IT. Some roles, such as those in IT, are very well suited for people with disabilities such as autism. The overwhelming effect of the work experience was positive, and his mum told me that he was less anxious, and over the period began to open up more and more—a significant challenge for young people with autism. We must do more to help that group.

--- Later in debate ---

[John Howell (Henley) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Moon. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Chichester (Gillian Keegan) on initiating a thoroughly brilliant debate.

I stand here with some embarrassment, as the product of three universities, and stand shoulder to shoulder with my hon. Friend in a party that really believes in opportunity and matching those opportunities to the individual. That is a very important point to make. I stand here with some embarrassment also because in my constituency, the number of youth unemployed receiving jobseeker’s allowance or universal credit was 25 according to the November figures. That is 25 people across the whole of the constituency, under the age of 24, who were unemployed. I want to look briefly at some of the reasons for that figure. We have discussed them but perhaps I can draw them together again.

This is all about apprenticeships. First, I will mention a type of apprenticeship that illustrates the point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Stirling (Stephen Kerr), which is at the company DAF Trucks, the truck maker in my constituency. It has established an academic relationship with a university just outside Bristol, and it celebrates the granting of those apprenticeships as if it were the granting of degrees. It is absolutely brilliant that they have done that.

Secondly, there are apprenticeships with semi-government organisations. Examples in my constituency include the work being done at the Culham Centre for Fusion Energy, in electrical training apprenticeships, and at the UK Atomic Energy Authority, which has been running apprenticeships on site for 12 years. I have become very involved with them in the sort of apprenticeships that they run. Thirdly, there are the type of apprenticeships that companies themselves sort out. A very good example in my constituency is the furniture maker StuartBarr, which has organised apprenticeships for a number of young people.

There is a difference in the way in which different schools approach apprenticeships. Some schools have gone out of their way to establish good relationships with business, but others still see going to university as the prime reason for the school. They do their children no favours at all in pursuing that line.

Fourthly, there are apprenticeships in genuine government organisations, such as prisons, which I mentioned in my intervention, where there is an incentive to get purposeful living out of prisoners to ensure that they do not reoffend. The use of apprenticeships there can be quite helpful.

The thing that all those types of apprenticeship have in common is hard work. They are not easy to run. They are not easy for students to undergo—and nor should they be, because this is about getting the skills for a future in life. We MPs can play an enormous role by encouraging apprenticeships and by talking to businesses and explaining the motivation behind the Government programmes that support apprenticeships.

[Leo Docherty]

My hon. Friend makes his point very eloquently. Does he agree that the link between business and education establishments is really important? Industry knows what it wants, and if it tells educational establishments what it wants, people will study for apprenticeships with enthusiasm because they know that they will be employed meaningfully at the end. We have had tremendous success with Farnborough College of Technology, which speaks directly to industry in Farnborough. Does he agree that that link is critical to the success of this model?

[John Howell]

I totally agree that that link is essential. An example in my constituency is Henley College, which has good networks of relationships and runs apprenticeship programmes that businesses actually want and can deliver for the students who take them. That is a crucial point. It would be pointless to offer apprenticeships that just float about in space and give no benefit at all to the people who take them. We want high-quality apprenticeships that deliver for everyone. Apprenticeships need to be win-win for both the academic organisation and the business. From my experience, that is perfectly achievable.

Housing and Social Security

John Howell Excerpts

Thursday 22nd June 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Richard Bacon (South Norfolk) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Deputy Speaker. I always think that a time limit is good for focusing the mind and generating extra productivity, so I will adhere to your strictures.

The Government said in their Queens’ Speech that they want to build more houses, which is an approach I strongly support. The title of the recent housing White Paper is “Fixing our broken housing market”—an important title and an admission of something that has been increasingly clear for many decades under Governments of all parties: our housing market simply does not work properly. The supply of housing does not rise to meet demand. [Interruption.] I see the right hon. Member for Wentworth and Dearne (John Healey) nodding, and I am glad that he is nodding; I hope to persuade him of some of the solutions on which he is still resisting my charms. I am sure that I will get there over the course of this Parliament.

The fact is that our broken housing market is failing to meet aspirations. In effect, demand is unable to influence supply and drive volumes in the way that it does in markets that operate successfully. Some years ago in a Committee room upstairs, the presenter of “Grand Designs”, the famous Channel 4 television programme, told our all-party parliamentary group on self-build, custom and community housebuilding and place-making:

“The consumer has been on the receiving end of a pretty poor deal. We build some of the poorest, most expensive and smallest homes in Europe. That’s not something to celebrate.”

At the core of the housing debate is a key intellectual problem: is development good or bad? We often see the word “development” used as a pejorative term, yet the instinct that we all have to nest and to build a home is a response to one of our deepest human needs. Mr Deputy Speaker, if you were to go on a survival course, you would be taught that without food you would die within seven to 10 days and that without water you may last three days, but you can die without shelter in 20 minutes. However, we often talk about development, which means providing enough shelter for everyone, as if it is a bad thing.

During a general election debate, one of my opponents said that housing—although she admitted that it was necessary—was a “heavy price to pay”. I understand that language even if I disagree with it. The reason people so often speak about development in that way is because it is driven and brought forward in the wrong way. It should be obvious that without enough housing the chances of our children and grandchildren finding a home that they can actually afford are rapidly fading from view. In order to make “development” a good word, we have to have good development.

[John Howell (Henley) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend accept that one way of driving forward house building is through neighbourhood plans? They are delivering more houses than originally set out by the district councils that instructed the building of houses.

[Mr Bacon]

I thank my hon. Friend for that and agree with him, although the caveat is that some developers are good at getting around neighbourhood plans, undermining their basis and confidence in them. The Government need to address that.

The key to getting the right kind of development is more choice and beauty. Now, that may sound airy-fairy, but it is the exact opposite, something which the Prince of Wales noted in his BIMBY or “Beauty-In-My-Back-Yard” campaign. We must have better, smarter, beautiful development that offers a wide range of real choices to consumers and is actively welcomed by existing communities, including the grandparents and parents who so often oppose development with arms folded saying, “We don’t want any houses in our area.” They want to see the next generation flourish and do well, and see their own grandchildren adequately housed. We must allow our communities greater voice and choice about what gets built, where it is built, what it looks like and who gets first chance to live there.

Oral Answers to Questions

John Howell Excerpts

Monday 27th March 2017 Commons Chamber

[Damian Green]

The case that the hon. Lady raises is clearly dreadful. I am sure that the whole House will want to send condolences to the family and friends of her constituent, particularly his widow. We are, of course, not just investing more in mental health than ever before—£11 billion this year—but succeeding specifically in improving clinical assessments. More clinical expertise is now available to the assessors who look at individual cases. As she will know, we have now ended reassessment for those who have conditions that can only stay the same or get worse. We are taking steps to try to minimise those effects.

[John Howell (Henley) (Con)]

22. Ensuring that people with mental health conditions are able to start businesses and also remain in business is very important. What is the Minister doing to encourage employers to make that a possibility?

[Damian Green]

My hon. Friend is right. We are taking action through Access to Work and Disability Confident, which I mentioned in response to my hon. Friend the Member for Faversham and Mid Kent (Helen Whately), but this needs to be part of a much wider programme of education specifically for employers. We have set up a Disability Confident business leaders group because I suspect that employers will listen more to other business people than they necessarily will to politicians.

Oral Answers to Questions

John Howell Excerpts

Monday 21st November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Damian Hinds]

Of course, what the hon. Lady refers to does not apply to the great majority of people in self-employment, but some concerns have been expressed. The growth of atypical employment was behind the Prime Minister quite rightly saying that there would be a proper review under Matthew Taylor. That review will look at a whole range of things, as its terms of reference are quite broad: rights, responsibilities, representation, training, representation of under-represented groups and so on.

[John Howell (Henley) (Con)]

19. I am glad we are doing so much to help the self-employed get into business, but so many of them are on the legacy system for support rather than universal credit. What are we doing for those people?

[Damian Hinds]

My hon. Friend makes a very good point. We are launching a test—face-to-face and on a voluntary basis, from Jobcentre Plus work coaches—for self-employed people currently in receipt of tax credits. A range of support material is also available at gov.uk.

Improving Lives: Work, Health and Disability Green Paper

John Howell Excerpts

Monday 31st October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Damian Green]

Obviously, if the hon. Gentleman wants to write to us about his constituent he should please do so, because we do not want any wrong decisions to be taken. I will happily look at the individual case, although he will recognise that I cannot possibly comment on it at the moment. The one point on which I would take issue with him is when he says that this is the tip of an iceberg. Actually, the number of successful appeals against ESA judgments has fallen very significantly, from 14% to 5% in recent months, so the figures suggest that the system is getting better at making such judgments.

[John Howell (Henley) (Con)]

Those with mental health conditions often require specialist support. What will the Green Paper do for people who suffer from mental health conditions?

[Damian Green]

It is particularly those with mental health conditions who will be helped by the Green Paper, with the more tailored and personalised support. Very often, people with mental health conditions have conditions that come and go, so they may work full time some of the time, part time some of the time and not at all at other times. The changes to benefits—particularly, perhaps, those to statutory sick pay—will make it much easier for such people to stay in touch with work, perhaps working part time for a period. All the evidence suggests that people with mental health conditions are disadvantaged if they are completely detached from the world of work, because their depression may get worse.

Child Poverty

John Howell Excerpts

Wednesday 1st July 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I remind colleagues that it is a very long-established convention in this House that if a Member wishes to be called in response to a ministerial statement, that Member must be present at the start of the statement; it is no good wandering in at some later point, even if it is only shortly afterwards. Any Members who came in late should please not carry on standing, because they will not be called.

[John Howell (Henley) (Con)]

Prior to 2010, when I was the party’s child poverty champion, we discussed these changes, so I welcome the Secretary of State’s statement. Does he accept that they represent a comprehensive approach to dealing with child poverty that is actually going to help?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I am glad that my hon. Friend believes that, because so do I. The purpose of what I have set out today, after a great deal of consideration over the past few years and a full consultation on the matter, is to arrive at a situation in which we are able to help those children and families in the greatest difficulty and try to move them out of poverty so that they sustain their lives out and beyond poverty.

Housing Benefit (Abolition of Social Sector Size Criteria)

John Howell Excerpts

Wednesday 17th December 2014 Commons Chamber

[John Howell (Henley) (Con)]

I am amazed that the Labour party wishes to portray the withdrawal of the spare room subsidy in the light it does. It seems to have forgotten that it introduced similar rules in the private rented sector, as was illustrated by my right hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Sir Tony Baldry). Difficult decisions have not been made regarding the social housing stock; instead they have been ignored.

It is appropriate that tenants make a contribution towards their rent if they are living in accommodation that is too large. As I will illustrate, the majority of tenants in the district I represent agree with this change, which will bring the social housing sector into line with the private rented sector. With that in mind, I looked at how the change was affecting people in the district in which I live. This debate needs that level of analysis to show that the charge is not affecting many people and that there is widespread agreement on the need for tenants to contribute to their rent, which we are all paying for, or to move out of houses that are seen to be too large for their needs.

There are almost 7,000 recipients of housing benefit in my district, of which almost 3,000 are in the private rented sector, which leaves 4,000 in the public rented sector. At the beginning of April 2013, the total number of social tenants having their housing benefit cut by the withdrawal of the spare room subsidy came to 474. By September 2014, this had fallen by 27%. In April 2013, the numbers affected amounted to 7% of the housing benefit case load; by September 2014, this had fallen to 5%. That is not a lot, but I believe passionately that the interests of those affected should be looked after.

For that reason, I looked at the discretionary housing payments. In the first period, 212 people applied for DHP. Of these, 139 received awards, leaving a total of 79 who applied but were rejected. Of those 79, only one appealed, and the officer’s decision was upheld. This year, the number of applications dropped from 212 to 40. Awards were made to 27; 13 were refused. Of those in receipt of DHP in July 2014, more than half accepted they needed to make up the deduction, while a total of 32% had either moved to a smaller property or returned to work and were no longer eligible for housing benefit. This is in a constituency where the unemployment rate has successfully dropped to 278.

Social housing tenants accept that they need to contribute to their rent or find work. Furthermore, there has been no significant impact on homelessness, and there remains an ongoing duty to accommodate homeless people. In 2012-13, homelessness stood at 44; in 2013-14, it stood at 40; and in 2014-15, it stood at 34. By the end of 2013-14, the level of rent arrears stood at 1.7% against a target of 2%. There is no denying that the spare room subsidy has affected a number of households, but the impact has not been widespread and many are accepting that they need to share the costs of this accommodation. That is in a district that is building accommodation that is suitable for people to move to as quickly as possible.

Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Welfare Reform (Disabled People)

John Howell Excerpts

Tuesday 28th October 2014 Commons Chamber

[Kate Green]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his intervention. This afternoon, we in this House have a chance to send exactly such messages on behalf of disabled people, as well as to send messages to them. I hope that the whole House will embrace this opportunity to state that we value them as equal citizens, believe we should treat them with respect, recognise the worth and potential of every person, and will not tolerate an attack on their dignity or their rights.

[John Howell (Henley) (Con)]

Does the hon. Lady accept that overall spending on disability benefits will be higher in the period to 2018 than it was under her Government?

[Kate Green]

Of course it is right that the benefits bill for disabled people has risen under this Government, but it remains Ministers’ ambition to cut that spend. The former Minister with responsibility for disabled people, the right hon. Member for Hemel Hempstead (Mike Penning), told me in a written answer on 14 July that the Government were on track to achieve billions of pounds of savings in cuts to the personal independence payment by 2017-18. Ministers need to be clear about whether they are spending more on disabled people or are in practice aiming to cut their benefits.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Harper]

I am not defending Lord Freud’s words. I am saying that it is not a reasonable conclusion to pretend that his comments reflect someone who is not fit to be a Minister of the Crown. I think Opposition Members do not really believe that. The motion is a cynical attempt to divert attention from some of the Government’s economic successes.

Let me set out the details of some of the proposals on which my noble Friend has been working. The House will see that he has improved lives not just for disabled people, but for other disadvantaged people in our country, not just in what he has said, but in what he has done.

[John Howell]

Does my hon. Friend agree that Lord Freud raised an important question, namely how we help those who want to work but who are faced with the most colossal barriers to doing so?

[Mr Harper]

That is what Lord Freud did. Many people in the press and broadcast coverage acknowledged that he expressed himself in an unhelpful way, but that he raised a real issue. We need to do more to tackle it. My hon. Friend has a fair reading of the situation.

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.

Welfare Benefits Up-rating Bill

John Howell Excerpts

Monday 21st January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Toby Perkins]

Such increases cannot be compared with how a Member of Parliament is able to sustain small increases. There is no comparison between what someone in severe poverty is able to cut and the situation faced by public sector workers, despite their currently being hard pressed, as many will testify.

[John Howell (Henley) (Con)]

Has the hon. Gentleman taken into account in his figures the impact of universal credit, which will lift 900,000-plus people out of poverty?

[Toby Perkins]

We have heard a lot of talk about universal credit but we still lack a lot of the detail. Given the record of the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions and the most catastrophic Work programme in history, if I were the hon. Gentleman I would not have much confidence in the success of the policies pursued by the Secretary of State until he has seen what the Government deliver.