Employment

Lord Holmes of Richmond Excerpts

Thursday 20th March 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Holmes of Richmond (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for initiating this incredibly significant debate and for all the work that he has done across the work and pensions landscape, which has been ground-breaking and innovative. It is worth reiterating yesterday’s employment figures: there are more people in employment now than at any previous time; more people employed in the private sector than at any previous time; and more women in employment than ever before. Yesterday’s Budget was a Budget for jobs: employment is up; growth is up; the deficit is down by a third and by next year it will be down by a half. Could there be any greater evidence for that than the announcement this morning from Hitachi that it will base its global—yes, global—rail business in the UK?

It is one thing for employers to provide jobs; we also need to ensure that the skills and training are there so that our people, particularly our young people, are ready to take up those employment opportunities. To that end, I commend the work of my noble friend Lord Baker of Dorking with the university technical colleges and the work they are doing. All educational establishments should focus on not just a careers service but what is now known as employability. I suggest to the Minister that he should consider a potentially statutory obligation on schools, colleges and universities to the young people leaving them which would last until those young people enter the next stage of their journey, be it higher education, training or employment. In future, it should not be possible to have someone who is not in education, employment or training and who has nobody potentially looking out for, supporting and assisting them to take that next step—whatever the right step might be for them.

Working on the Olympic and Paralympic Games, we saw the opportunity to create hundreds of thousands of jobs, but also how there were gaps—particularly in the host boroughs—in finding people to fill those jobs and to drive employment in the local area as much as we all wanted. That will continue. When you look at iCITY, a brilliant redevelopment of the media centre in the Olympic park, there will be high-skill, high-tech jobs. We need to ensure that people have the right skills to be able to go into those jobs and to continue to work in their local areas. Similarly in terms of construction, there is the E20 village—the old athletes’ village—and the new plans at Ebbsfleet. In Scotland, there is the new town at Tornagrain. These will provide thousands of constructions jobs, engineering jobs and jobs across the economy. We need to ensure that people are ready, willing and able to take up those jobs. Similarly, across the massive infrastructure programme that we are rolling out under the careful eye of my noble friend Lord Deighton, there is again potential to drive economic growth and employment opportunities right up and down the country, but we need to have people ready, willing and able to take up those jobs.

UKTI has already been mentioned. Great work has been done but successive generations have relied far too much on the EEC, the EC and now the EU. Yes, Europe is a great market but it is not the only one. We have got nowhere near maximising our opportunities with the BRIC economies. When I was with the GREAT campaign down in Rio in 2011, I found that Italy exported many multiples more than the UK did to Brazil. Italy has no historical or language connection to Brazil but it has built up an effective, practical and meaningful trading relationship that has driven jobs, and not just in Brazil, for Italian businesses. We need to look at that, not just in terms of the BRIC economies but also the new MINT economies—Mexico, Indonesia, Nigeria and, not least, Turkey. Turkey is pretty much on our doorstep. To get a sense of the demographic there, take any western European advanced mature democracy and then turn that demographic on its head. That is the opportunity in Turkey. The majority of the population is under 25. Its economic growth is in double digits. Those people are purchasing and we need to ensure that they have the opportunity to purchase British stuff and so drive employment for our businesses right up and down the UK.

I turn to Scotland. Ultimately—in September—an incredibly significant decision will be made by the Scottish people, the most significant decision for the union in hundreds of years. It will not be simply a decision about their destiny, and it will not be considered only on the basis of Faslane. It will not be about oil, per se, and it will not be about the financial service industry in Edinburgh in isolation. It will be about jobs. It will be about employment. When Scottish voters put their cross in the box in September, I urge them not to think just about Scottish jobs; I urge them to think about English jobs and UK jobs, because that is what is at stake, and we will all benefit if we keep the union together.

In short, the Budget was about employment. It was about possibility. It was about potential. We are not out of the woods but we are on the right road. There is a long journey ahead of us. We need to drill into those employment figures, as has already been mentioned, and ensure that every area and region of the country is benefiting from this employment boom. We need to ensure that young people and disabled people are similarly benefiting and being enabled into employment. In short, we need to ensure, for all our sakes, that every person who is able to work is enabled to do so and that we provide real security for those who are not. It is in all our interests to drive this forward. What we should all be striving for is a high-employment, low-inflation, high-productivity, low-interest-rate, prosperous United Kingdom economy that is focused on and fit for the future.