Employment

Lord Wrigglesworth Excerpts

Wednesday 4th November 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Altmann]

I would be delighted to tell my noble friend. Since 2010, the number of women in work has risen by 920,000. The female employment rate has increased by 3.3 percentage points to a record level of 68.8%. By contrast, between 2005 and 2010, the employment rate for women fell by 1.3 percentage points.

[Lord Wrigglesworth (LD)]

My Lords, however good those figures are, is the noble Baroness aware that the black cloud of unemployment hangs like a shroud over thousands of families, and the whole community, in Redcar on Teesside? Is she aware that this is a huge site of eight square miles, with a blast furnace as big as St Paul’s Cathedral, and that it will take a great deal to bring it back into use after the facilities have been demolished? There is a site next door—also of eight square miles—with another steelworks whose future is also in doubt. Down in Ebbsfleet in Kent, the Government have given £200 million to rehabilitate the site. Will they look at the figure given for the Redcar site of £80 million, £20 million of which is going on redundancy payments, to see if it can be increased, and bring together a task force to do something for that community?

[Baroness Altmann]

My Lords, we understand that the position in Redcar is terribly distressing for all the families involved, and the Government are already addressing this issue. There are measures already in place to help the workers affected to retrain. The Government are committed to full employment, and there are record numbers of people in work. We have had tremendous success in helping people back into work and we will continue to do that for Redcar and around the country