Labour Market Activity

Debate between Jonathan Ashworth and Jerome Mayhew

Tuesday 28th February 2023 Commons Chamber

[Jerome Mayhew]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. The question is: at what cost does this come and who pays the price? It is the young, the unemployed and the old who are outside the club of unionisation. They are the ones who pay the price, and the evidence is in the data.

It is an extraordinary fact that every Labour Government in history have ended up destroying employment, leaving more people out of work than when they came into power. The figures hide the real cost of Labour being in hock to the unions. I mean “in hock” literally: since 2010, it has received £142 million. That is excluding individual contributions to Opposition right hon. and hon. Members, and not even mentioning the hon. Member for Brent North (Barry Gardiner), so actually the number is a lot higher.

Raising employment barriers skews what would otherwise be a much more sensible employment policy for the Opposition. The costs are paid by those outside the club. Look at youth employment. In 2010, Labour left office with youth unemployment at about 20%. Right now, even after a global pandemic, youth unemployment is at 11.3%—almost half. Look at the long-term unemployed. In the 2000s, as we have already heard, Labour left about 1.4 million people unemployed for longer than 12 months. Today, the figure is 270,000, roughly a quarter of the number under the terrible record of Labour. Look at the people who are harder to employ—those, perhaps, with disabilities. Under this Government, there are 1.3 million more people with disabilities in employment than before 2016. That is the proud record of this Government. This Government do not pontificate about pay and employment; they get on with creating a dynamic labour market, supporting those most in need, not the union paymasters.

We have created a labour market not just by removing barriers to employment, but by having a benefits system that always makes work pay: the universal credit system, the destruction of which the right hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) made the key plank of his 2019 election manifesto. Labour Members all fought the last election on the basis that they wanted to get rid of universal credit, and the right hon. and learned Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer) continued that policy. In October 2020, when he was already leader of the Labour party, he said that “in the long term” universal credit needed to be replaced

“because… it traps people in poverty.”

However, given what we have heard from the hon. Member opposite, that now appears to be Labour policy.

[Jonathan Ashworth]

I am the right hon. Member.

[Jerome Mayhew]

Right hon. Member: he is quite correct. It seems that we agree on the concept behind universal credit. When did he experience that damascene conversion?

The Government are providing extra help, not for the unions but for the young, the disabled and those who are termed “the old”—meaning those over the age of 50, which, in my view, is hardly old. For the young, we have halved youth unemployment. We have the kickstart scheme, which the right hon. Gentleman criticised earlier, saying that it did not help 250,000 people into employment. However, it did help 160,000 into employment, including many of my constituents. As for the disabled, 1.3 million more have been employed since 2017. For the old, we have the age-friendly employer pledge and the 50PLUS champions. This is a work in progress, but it shows the direction of travel of this dynamic Government.

More widely, we are boosting support for 600,000 people on universal credit by securing greater access to job coaches. It is this Government who have doubled the number of job coaches, increasing it by 13,500 to give more help to unemployed people wishing to get back into work. I have seen this lately in my constituency. The Jobcentre Plus in Fakenham does amazing work, and the staff say the job coaches are wonderful and do a fantastic job.

There is a great deal to do. There is, for instance, post-covid recovery. We are experiencing a reduction in economic activity, and that position needs to be improved, but I trust that this Government—