United Kingdom Jobs Market

Lord Spellar Excerpts

Wednesday 11th June 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Katz (Lab)]

I thank the noble Baroness for her question. She is right to identify the huge personal impact of long periods of economic inactivity and joblessness, as well as the obvious deleterious economic impact. The Government’s Get Britain Working White Paper sets out a bold and comprehensive vision to tackle that inactivity and build an inclusive labour market. As well as wanting to raise the UK’s employment rate to over 80%, it aims to modernise employment support. We have set out a number of trailblazers—including the first pathfinder, launched just last week in Wakefield—as part of a commitment to create a new jobs and careers service, which will shift the focus of the jobcentre system from box-ticking to job finding. It is a sad fact that only 9% of employers currently recruit through jobcentres. That is too few; they should become recruiters of choice. Our plan in the Get Britain Working White Paper is designed to make that happen.

[Lord Spellar (Lab)]

My Lords, does the Minister accept that, unfortunately, we have a very inefficient jobs market and there are too many artificial barriers? For example, there are requirements for work experience that prevent science graduates entering industry. There is age discrimination and paper qualifications that are not relevant to the job. Those who have criminal records, often from decades before, are prevented from entering the workforce. This applies to both the public and the private sector. Is it not time to sweep away these artificial barriers so that people can get into work, look after themselves and make a contribution to our economy and society?

[Lord Katz (Lab)]

I thank my noble friend for his question. He is absolutely right: we need to do whatever we can to make sure that those barriers to work are torn down. To refer back to the Question asked by the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Wirral, obviously we need to make sure that we have fair employment practices, that workplaces are fair, and that people get paid for a fair amount of work. We are taking steps to ensure that we ask people who face barriers to work what those barriers are. For instance, I am pleased to tell my noble friend that we have just set up a youth advisory panel of people who will provide their expertise from their experience to ensure that the voices of young people, most of whom are not in education, employment or training, are central to the design and deployment of the new jobs and careers service.