Labour Market Activity
Debate between Jonathan Ashworth and Chris Stephens(1 year, 9 months ago)
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Jonathan Ashworth
They have been articulate and fantastic champions. I always praise my fellow MPs from Leicester. The Government need to take this agenda seriously, because we know that increasing numbers of women in their 50s are being forced out of the labour market but would stay in work if given the right flexible options.
We also need to tackle the barriers in the social security system that prevent people from moving into work. People should not be trapped on welfare, abandoned to going nowhere. That brings me to childcare. We know that childcare can make the difference between a parent rejoining the workforce and staying at home to look after their children. For some parents, childcare may not be available where they live, but for many parents—particularly those on the lowest incomes—childcare costs can be an insurmountable barrier to work. That should not be the case.
A lack of childcare, or a lack of support paying for it, should not stand in the way of a parent returning to work, yet low-income families often have that choice taken away from them. The design of the universal credit system means that childcare costs are based on payment in arrears, but as childcare usually needs to be paid up front, in advance, parents often have to choose between taking on debt or turning down work. It is pushing more families into debt. The Government’s answer is that people can go to their work coach and ask for a flexible support fund grant, but it should not be the case that a poorly understood and difficult handout scheme administered by the DWP is there to address the failings in the DWP’s own policy. We need to fix this.
Chris Stephens (Glasgow South West) (SNP)
Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
Chris Stephens
I will take hon. Friend. There is another problem, which is that lone parents face the choice of working reduced hours, because if they increase their hours they will lose out on state support.
Jonathan Ashworth
Absolutely. It beggars belief that people are being trapped out of work because of the current system. It needs fundamental reform.
Part of the problem is the way in which the amount of childcare that can be reimbursed has been capped. A family in 2009 who received working tax credit and needed full-time childcare of 50 hours a week would have been reimbursed for 38 of those hours. Today, the same family on universal credit would be reimbursed for only 27 of those hours—at a time when we want to support more parents into work. Fixing childcare not only is the right thing to do, but will help the economy. The Centre for Progressive Policy has said that if women had access to adequate childcare services, they would generate up to £28 billion for the economy. Why are Ministers not fixing it?
Finally, the social security system should support, not hinder, people’s journey into work, but too often the system disincentivises work and makes even trying it too much of a risk. The work capability assessment acts as a barrier for people and the assessments can be arduous, lengthy and stressful. Many people with ill health simply do not want to risk going through that process again if they move into work and something goes wrong. Instead, we should guarantee that people in that position, who move into employment with the help of employment support, can return to the benefits that they were on without the need for another lengthy assessment process.
This is a plan to get people back to work, but where is the Government’s plan? They spin that they are working on something, but they cannot even tell us whether their existing policies are making a difference. I have been asking them about those policies and this is what they have told me. When I asked how much funding was allocated to each jobcentre, I was told:
“The information requested is not available.”
When I asked if they could tell us how many people had secured a job at the end of taking part in sector-based work academy programmes, I was told:
“This information is not available.”
When I asked how many people got jobs after taking part in the DWP’s mentoring circles, I was told that the information “is not collated”.
When I asked how many times people on universal credit have been asked to meet a work coach, I was told:
“No such specific assessment has been made.”
When I asked how many universal credit claimants were undertaking training or education that counted towards their work-related requirements, I was told:
“The requested information is not held.”
When I asked how many universal credit claimants were employed as carers, I was told:
“The requested information is not held.”
When I asked what the average amount of time is between receiving jobseeker’s allowance and receiving a job offer, I was told:
“The information requested is not…available.”
When I asked how many people stopped receiving employment and support allowance as a result of gaining employment, I was told:
“The information requested is not…available.”
When I asked how much money from the flexible support fund has been used to assist jobseekers with the cost of childcare, I was told
“The information is not available”.
When I asked how many individuals were awarded payments for childcare from the flexible support fund, I was told that the information requested is not available.
This lot are supposed to be getting people back to work, but a plan for jobs is not available. That is probably why the Secretary of State—the shadow shadow Secretary of State—now copies our welfare reform plans. We propose welfare reforms to benefits, and two days’ later we read in The Times that he is adopting them. We call for deeper links between health and employment services, and a week or so later he copies us. We put forward reforms to get the over-50s back into work, and a few weeks’ later he nicks them. I even went to the shop where I get my suits from—this is absolutely true—and the people said that he had recently been in there.
People say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, so why does the copycat Secretary of State not move out of the road and let us take over? Let us get Britain back to work, because Labour is winning the battle of ideas. I commend our motion to the House.