“Get Britain Working” White Paper

Lord Laming Excerpts

Wednesday 27th November 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Laming (CB)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for setting out the numbers of young people we are talking about who are not in employment or education. The Minister will know that earlier this year the Public Services Committee of this House set out a report based on a study of the transitional arrangements many of these young people experience as they move from school to employment, especially those with a disability or long-term health problems.

We had the extremes in the evidence. Some were simply brushed aside as being unemployable for a lifetime. For others, services and employers at local level got together and produced some wonderful opportunities to completely change the life chances of these young people. Could the Minister assure the House that the Government will look at this report and take forward the recommendations? They were considerable and intended to achieve some of the outcomes set out in this paper.

[Baroness Sherlock (Lab)]

I am grateful to the noble Lord for that intervention and also of course for his many years of experience and work in the field of social policy and social care. I very much feel that what he described is what we are trying to do, and I absolutely assure him that the report will be looked at in detail and we will go through the recommendations carefully. One challenge we have is that it is too easy to write off young people. Nowadays, they are judged: the assumption is that they are not trying very hard and the expectations are there. Actually, I do not meet young people who do not want to be out there building a life. It is just that, sometimes, the challenges feel too big. If we can find the right way to support them—if we can get proper mental health support in place and if we can help employers to know how best to work with people who have mental health challenges—we can get people into jobs and they can stay in them.

In the years that I worked with single parents, for example, one thing I learned is that if people have found it difficult to get a job, if they find one that works for them, they are the most loyal employees anyone could get, because they have found a way in and something that works, and it becomes a brilliant relationship. So I am grateful to the noble Lord for that and I will take a careful look at it.