Unemployment in Scotland

Mark Lazarowicz Excerpts

Wednesday 5th December 2012 Westminster Hall

[Mark Lazarowicz (Edinburgh North and Leith) (Lab/Co-op)]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for West Dunbartonshire (Gemma Doyle) for giving Members an opportunity to discuss an issue of such great importance. Like other colleagues, I will concentrate on issues that relate to my constituency. Edinburgh North and Leith does not have the extreme levels of high unemployment that are suffered by some other constituencies. It normally comes somewhere in the middle of the UK figures. As unemployment goes up in the UK, so, too, does it in my constituency, and it stays roughly in the middle range. However, as with all our constituencies, and indeed the country as a whole, the broad picture does not always accurately reflect the position on the ground. It would not surprise many Members in the Chamber to hear that my constituency has areas that are among the richest in not just Scotland but the UK as a whole, and also areas that come near the top of the deprivation and unemployment rates in Edinburgh and, in some cases, in Scotland as a whole.

Youth unemployment has risen sharply in my constituency. A year or so ago, we found that we had the highest rate in Scotland of 16 to 17-year-olds not in education or employment. My constituency has certainly suffered from recent events in line with the rest of the UK. I suspect that we are also experiencing the phenomenon to which my hon. Friend the Member for West Dunbartonshire referred of unemployment not really showing up in the figures. That is perhaps more true in my constituency than in any other. I strongly suspect that underemployment is a major factor, with people who want to work full time finding themselves working part time because there is no alternative.

I am aware that many people in my constituency are self-employed. There are those who were on contracts to work in the financial services sector or who were in some ways linked to it. They are still self-employed, but the amount of work they are getting has dropped dramatically, as has their income. Although this is difficult to work out from the figures, I suspect that that is a particularly severe problem in my constituency.

The house building figures are also low, showing a dramatic lack of activity in my constituency. House building is always a sign of activity in the economy as a whole, and the latest figures from the National House-Building Council show that the number of new home starts in my constituency over the last quarter was just eight, and that is in a constituency and a city where the population is still growing. The population of Edinburgh is now almost half a million; it has grown by almost 20% over the past 10 years and it is projected to grow still further. We certainly would not expect such a low number of new home starts if the economy was going well, and it clearly is not.

We have heard from colleagues about the lack of success of the Work programme. For me, people getting into a job at the end of it is a pretty good indicator of whether the scheme is working. Again, the number of people in my constituency who have found work is not as low as elsewhere—my hon. Friend the Member for West Dunbartonshire referred to a figure of 2%. In my constituency, it is 3% of those over 25. It seems that people who go on the programme are getting work at a lower rate than those who do not, which does not sound like a recipe for success.

[Jim McGovern]

My own daughter, Jillian McGovern, is one of my hon. Friend’s constituents, and she was made redundant earlier this year. Thankfully, she has managed to find a new job, with no assistance whatever from the Department for Work and Pensions. Does my hon. Friend agree that the DWP Work programme seems to be drastically unsuccessful?

[Mark Lazarowicz]

The figures clearly speak for themselves. I am glad that my hon. Friend’s daughter has found employment. Of course, one of the tragedies is that many staff in the DWP are working hard to try to make the scheme work, but are unable to do so. We all know that when there is a general backdrop of high unemployment and low economic activity, there is only so much that can be done.

Some things are being done by various levels of Government. I am pleased to say that the Edinburgh city council, through the Edinburgh Guarantee scheme, has been active not just in itself as an authority but in the private sector, encouraging the provision of real jobs and opportunities for young people. In the current year, Edinburgh city council is offering 50 new apprenticeships, 18 new training places and 50 further opportunities with council contractors. It has been encouraging private sector employers to take up that approach as well, with some success. Of course Edinburgh has a Labour-led council, which may have something to do with the success, but it certainly shows what can be done by local government, at city or district level, to respond to the current difficulties.

Clearly, a local authority can only do so much, so what we need is a change in the national picture and the national direction. We need a change of course, such as the one that my hon. Friend the Member for West Dunbartonshire referred to in her opening contribution. We also need action at Scottish level.

One of the ways in which we can provide real jobs and use the current economic downturn to provide a way out and a way forward for the future is, of course, to invest in infrastructure projects. Both the UK Government and the Scottish Government have been slow off the mark in coming up with new infrastructure projects to meet the needs of the time. I have lost count of the number of times that this Government—the UK Government—have announced new infrastructure schemes and projects, and processes and mechanisms to try to bring jobs into the sector. I accept that things are slowly happening. However, it is two and a half years in now, and we have seen hardly any new projects and hardly any new jobs on the ground as a result of the UK Government’s limited measures to promote infrastructure investment.

I also have to say that the Scottish Government have been slow off the mark. Of course, their powers are not as wide as some of their members would like, but there is a lot that they could do with their existing taxation powers and spending programmes to boost jobs and infrastructure in Scotland.

I am pleased that the Scottish Government’s Cabinet Secretary has recently presented the UK Government with a list of “shovel-ready” projects, as he described them. I think that he could have been preparing that list a bit earlier on in the scheme of things, but nevertheless it has now come forward. I know that one of the major schemes on that list is for investment of more than £100 million to develop the port of Leith in my constituency, which will be important not only for Leith—obviously—but for the whole Scottish economy. That is certainly good, and I hope that in his response to the debate the Minister will tell us that he and his colleagues in the Scotland Office—or rather, his colleague, the Secretary of State—are lobbying actively to ensure that Scotland gets its fair share of the infrastructure investments that come forward, and that those investments are put into effect as soon as possible.

That is the key point—we need action now. We do not need promises of infrastructure investment or activity two, three, four years down the line. We do not want people to be promised training places with no jobs to go into at the end of the training period. We need a change of course, and we need the measures that the Government have promised, particularly on infrastructure, to be put into effect as soon as possible, so that we see some urgency from the Government in a way that, frankly, we have not seen in the past two and a half years.

--- Later in debate ---

[David Mundell]

The forum will meet for the first time early in the new year, and its prime focus will be to co-ordinate the different interests and to ensure that there is a seamless programme of support for people looking for work, thereby ensuring that they are neither passed around nor a victim of conflicting agendas. The forum has an important role to play, because it is quite clear that we have to bring together more close working.

I am concerned about a couple of issues that were raised.

[Mark Lazarowicz]

Will the Minister give way?