Jobs and Social Security

Lord Wharton of Yarm Excerpts

Wednesday 28th November 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hoban]

Let me address the right hon. Member for Tottenham, who was critical of apprenticeships in retail. How many of our supermarket bosses started off on the shop floor? We should not close down any route to advancement. He also criticised apprenticeships in administration. For many people, a job in an office is a route out of poverty. He should welcome opportunities to broaden the range of skills that are available to people.

I should tell the hon. Member for Wansbeck (Ian Lavery) that I get fed up with people talking down the north-east. I was born and bred in the north-east, and I went there a couple of weeks ago. Let us look at what has happened there. Employment is up by 40,000. People are talking about the need for more skills. There are big challenges in the north-east, but he does his region no service by talking down its people. While I am at it, let me say that he talked about the work capability assessment. Let me remind him that his Government introduced it. This Government are reforming it to ensure that it is the right policy and that it gets people into work and off a lifetime condemned to inactivity.

[James Wharton (Stockton South) (Con)]

I welcomed the Minister to the north-east recently, and I am delighted to hear him say such positive things about the region. Is it not in places such as the north-east, where welfare dependency can be seen to do the most damage, that these sorts of programmes are so important?

[Mr Hoban]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We need to see programmes of reform to get people off benefit and into work. It is about making sure that we equip people with the skills they need in a 21st-century economy. Programmes such as the Work programme enable that to happen.

I was rather disappointed that we did not hear more from the shadow Minister about Labour’s bank bonus tax. This is a big feature of the motion before us today. Yet again, the Opposition trot out the bank payroll tax as the solution. The problem is that it is their solution for everything. How would they pay for a VAT cut? The bank payroll tax. Higher capital expenditure? The bank payroll tax. Reversing changes to child benefit? The bank payroll tax. At the last count, a tax that they think would raise £2 billion has been used 15 times over to fund tax cuts and spending increases.