Jobs and Social Security

Debate between Liam Byrne and Jessica Morden

Wednesday 28th November 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Byrne]

In a moment.

The Government spent something like £63 million closing down the flexible new deal—a programme that was actually getting more people into sustainable jobs than the Work programme and was costing only something like 9.5% more per job outcome. The Government have, in effect, shut down a system that was working, spent an awful long time getting something back up and then overseen a programme that has dramatically failed to hit the target set for it in the first years. It is a catalogue of failure.

[Jessica Morden (Newport East) (Lab)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that yesterday’s figures for young long-term unemployed people were especially tragic? Would he be interested to know that Jobs Growth Wales, which was introduced by the Labour Government in the Welsh Assembly in April, has proved to be seven times as effective in getting young people back into work and was based precisely on the future jobs fund?

[Mr Byrne]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The Work programme has been an abject failure in her constituency. Only 1.4% of people in her constituency who went into the programme were attached to any kind of sustainable job outcome. We know from Department for Work and Pensions research last week that the future jobs fund was a roaring success, delivering more than £7,500 of wider benefit to society. It was such a tragedy that the Government closed it down. Thank heavens that Labour is in power up and down the country, including in Wales, where we are building on the lessons of the future jobs fund, making it better and stronger, and now making a difference for young people across her constituency and beyond in Wales.