Employment Rates

Michael Tomlinson Excerpts

Wednesday 6th June 2018 Westminster Hall

[Michael Tomlinson (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered recent trends in employment rates.

It is a real pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Roger. I am delighted to have secured the debate, not least because I missed the last one. I am particularly pleased that hon. Members from both sides of the House have risked coming along this morning for a second time—take two. The debate gives me the opportunity to update the House on the work of the all-party parliamentary group on youth employment, on which I will focus.

However, I will first mention some trends in employment growth as a whole. My speech will not be full of statistics; it would be very dull and boring if it were. However, I must mention some, and having missed the last debate in April, I now have May’s Office for National Statistics figures, which show yet another rise in the employment rate, which is now at 75.6%. Had I turned up on time to that debate, it would have been only 75.4%, so in a way I am delighted to have missed that debate and to have an opportunity to update the House on the latest figures.

The overall unemployment rate is 4.2%. However, in the ONS figures, which are actually fascinating to look at, I always look out for the job vacancies, because quite often they tell a story in themselves. It is always of interest to see 806,000 job vacancies, which is 17,000 more than a year earlier. The largest area in which there are job vacancies is the services sector. Employment growth since 2010 has been called a jobs miracle, and long may it continue.

Let me mention one or two points about businesses. It is sometimes said that the Government create jobs, but I firmly believe that businesses create jobs and that the Government set the framework and create the environment in which businesses can flourish and then take on more employees. In that regard, the Government have cut corporation tax from 30% to 19%. Despite the doom-and-gloom cries about how that would reduce the tax take, the Exchequer has in fact seen an increased tax take as a result. There are 5.7 million businesses, which is an increase of 1.2 million since 2010. I am delighted that the World Economic Forum says that this country is one of the top places to do business.

Turning to youth employment, I am honoured and privileged to chair the APPG, which is a role I took over from my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich North (Chloe Smith). Under her leadership, we changed the name of the group from the APPG on youth unemployment to the APPG on youth employment, which is much more positive and actually much more reflective of the facts and the statistics on the grounds.

The secretariat for the group is provided by Youth Employment UK. I pay tribute to its work, and particularly to Laura-Jane Rawlings, who provides the secretariat and support. What the group does particularly well is bring young ambassadors into Parliament. We try to meet on the day the ONS statistics come out, but it is the young ambassadors who really bring our meetings to life. I would be delighted to invite the Minister to come along to one of our meetings, although I must warn him that the young ambassadors can ask some of the trickiest and most ticklish questions, so he will have to be on his mettle.

The ONS recently changed the day on which it releases its labour force survey statistics, from a Wednesday to a Tuesday, which I am told is because it gives MPs more of a chance to examine the figures before Prime Minister’s Question Time. Whether MPs avail themselves of that opportunity I am not sure, but that is the reason given for the change.

Looking at the 16 to 24 age bracket, the headline figure for youth unemployment for May is 12.1%. That is down from a year earlier and is in fact within touching distance of the lowest it has ever been on record, which was 11.6%. The highest, in 2011, was touching 22%. At each and every meeting of our APPG, I still say that it is too high—it is three times the overall unemployment rate of 4%.

We should perhaps not directly compare ourselves with Greece and Spain, where youth unemployment is 45% and 34% respectively. However, other international comparisons include Croatia on 23.5% and Denmark on 10%, but then Germany on 6% and the Czech Republic on 7.2%. We really should aspire to at least halve our youth unemployment rate. Interestingly, the youth claimant count is 3%. However, my view is that youth unemployment is still too high and that we must aim to eradicate it, or certainly to reduce it.

In the time remaining I will touch on our APPG’s most recent report and on what we will be doing in future, and I will then look at an innovative, multi-APPG report on the hospitality sector. Our most recent report, entitled “Those Furthest from the Labour Market”, had quite a wide remit. It looked at the barriers that young people face, from deprivation to disability. It made a number of recommendations, and I invite colleagues, and particularly the Minister, to look at all of them, but I will highlight what in my view are the three key recommendations.

First, we must ensure that all young people in education have access to work experience. That is absolutely key, as it allows them to develop soft skills, as well as to get information, advice and guidance, which must be practical but also inspirational. Secondly, one size does not fit all, as is so often the case in every sector. Education, employment and welfare services must recognise the unique potential of all our young people. Thirdly, we need better cross-departmental working. I would like the Minister to consider this point in due course, although perhaps not today. We need better co-ordination of responsibilities and services, including among the Department for Education, the Department for Work and Pensions, the Department of Health and Social Care and the Ministry of Justice. I firmly believe that, through better cross-departmental working, we can truly look at youth unemployment as a whole. Our future reports will include looking at young care leavers entering the workforce and also young ex-offenders looking at education and employment.

I will briefly touch on the hospitality commission that I mentioned a few moments ago. It is a multi-APPG that includes the APPGs for youth employment, for the visitor’s economy, for tourism and hospitality in Wales, for education and the all-party parliamentary beer group. It will look at all aspects of the hospitality sector, including promoting careers, the diversity of the workforce and education and skills. Importantly, it will show that hospitality is not just a stop gap or a temporary job but can actually be career in and of itself. We had our first evidence session and we have two to go. I invite colleagues to look out for that report when it is published.

Finally, I will mention my constituency—it is always nice to be able to do so in this forum—and Dorset Young Chamber. I chaired the steering group when it was set up in 2016. It touches 13 schools, and not just in my constituency but right across Dorset. Ian Girling, the indomitable chairman of the Dorset chamber of commerce and industry, set up Dorset Young Chamber in response to an annual Ofsted report to Parliament in December 2015 that outlined the importance of strong careers advice and guidance and the firm need to improve the link between schools and employers. If we are to ensure that recent trends in employment rates continue, that will be absolutely crucial.

As part of the Dorset Young Chamber scheme, each school has a link with one local business that it can call on to help with careers advice, with an individual talk, or just to be that link between education and employment. The key is so often that young people see the purpose of their academic work and where it will actually lead in the end. I believe that is an invaluable link between education and employment and that that model could and should be adopted across the rest of the country.

I have tried to refrain from using too many statistics, but they are important and show just how far we have come since 2010. When it comes to employment, and especially the lives and job prospects of young people, we of course must not be complacent. We must continue to create the right environment to ensure that businesses expand and grow. I would like the Minister and the Government to keep a laser-like focus on youth employment statistics, not because the statistics are important in and of themselves, but because behind every number is a real person, a young person who is trying to get a job and a good start in life.

[Luke Pollard (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Lab/Co-op)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Michael Tomlinson) on securing this important debate. Sometimes we do not get into the nitty-gritty of the stories behind the statistics, so I would like to focus on that today. In particular, I will focus my remarks, as would be expected of a Plymouth MP, on the experience of Plymouth, which, as we know, is the centre of the world. However, I also want to delve into the statistics and to look at unemployment not in isolation but as part of a basket of measures, because there needs to be greater focus not just on one raw indicator, standing in isolation, but on the broader picture if we are to safeguard the job creation, stability and quality of employment that we all want to see throughout the country.

Unemployment statistics are only one part of the picture, and I am always a bit cautious about Government statistics, whether they were produced under the coalition or the current Government or, indeed, when Labour was in power, because they are designed to tell one part of the story only. Although the overall jobless figures may be falling, which is to be welcomed, in-work poverty, insecure employment and the use of zero-hours contracts are rising. Food bank use is up. The housing crisis continues, and the welfare system continues to be cruel, all too often creating poverty and worry, where it should be achieving the opposite.

[Michael Tomlinson]

The hon. Gentleman will forgive me for interrupting him so early in his remarks, but I want to take him back to what he said about Government statistics. I agree that we should be cautious and have a healthy scepticism about statistics, but, of course, the statistics under discussion are ONS statistics, not Government statistics, so perhaps we can lend them greater weight than a sceptical public otherwise might.

[Luke Pollard]

Indeed. The hon. Gentleman makes a good point. How statistics are presented by Government can sometimes devalue some of the credibility that the original source may provide, and I am sure that we can all bring to mind examples of that. On the subject of statistics, I am a great believer in the way inflation is calculated. If hon. Members will indulge me for a few seconds, I will explain. Inflation is calculated by taking a basket of measures, of everyday goods, and calculating the inflation rate based on the real-world experience of many measures, many goods, not just one of them. In that sense, a basket of measures can create a fuller, more thorough illustration of what is actually happening.

The reality gap between individual employment statistics and the lived experiences, especially of young people, would be addressed much more thoroughly by having a basket of measures than by focusing just on the jobless figures or any other singular reality. I suggest that when we look at how we talk about unemployment statistics, employment statistics and debt, we look at a basket of measures, which needs to include employment, wages and wage growth, in-work poverty, child poverty, homelessness and temporary housing, disposable income, the number and penetration of zero-hours contracts and especially their demographic targeting, benefit take-up, sanction levels, household debt and overall personal indebtedness. Perhaps those things could be wrapped up together as a new basket of measures whereby we can look at the lived experience of people in employment, because all too often the fact that someone is in a job and that there is a tick beside that box is what is presented by Governments of all colours. We know that the lived experience of people in work, especially in today’s economy, where simply having a contract does not guarantee that someone will get any wages at the end of the week or month, devalues some of the credibility that the jobless figures or employment figures may have carried in the past, when employment was more secure and long term.

--- Later in debate ---

[Michael Tomlinson]

I am grateful to the Minister and to all colleagues who have contributed to today’s debate. The hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Luke Pollard) said that we must look at the stories behind the statistics. I completely agree, and I hope that I gave a sense of that in my speech as well. The Minister has answered the hon. Gentleman’s point about having a basket or range of measures, but I believe that we should perhaps do the same thing more broadly when we look at poverty—we should use a broader range of measures to look at that issue. The hon. Gentleman made a very interesting point.

The Minister responded to the point made by the hon. Member for Warwick and Leamington (Matt Western) about the jobs “mirage”. I do not think that a fair look at the independent statistics bears out the hon. Gentleman’s soundbite, although I was pleased that he was able to make it to the debate, albeit for a short time.

My hon. Friend the Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk (John Lamont) raised a lot of issues that many of us in more rural constituencies will recognise, particularly on infrastructure and the importance of digital infrastructure, which is a vital part of the infrastructure that we need. He also mentioned the importance of getting more high-skilled jobs.

I was pleased that my hon. Friend the Member for Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock (Bill Grant) raised the issue of the Disability Confident scheme. We must ensure that we narrow the disability employment gap. Importantly, he mentioned the Matthew Taylor review. The hon. Member for Wirral West (Margaret Greenwood) mentioned zero-hours contracts, but my hon. Friend the Minister made a very good point about cutting down on exclusivity clauses. That point was particularly welcome.

The hon. Member for Edinburgh North and Leith (Deidre Brock) accused me of perhaps being overly rosy. If I was overly rosy, perhaps she was overly pessimistic, not least about Brexit. Perhaps the hon. Member for Wirral West was also being a little pessimistic in her outlook, but I welcomed some of her thoughts. However, I was pleased that the Minister had time to make some points about zero-hours contracts in his response.

Finally, I was particularly pleased by the Minister’s comments on cross-departmental working. That is a key message, and it is something that must continue in not just this area but all areas. I am pleased that he has accepted the invitation and the challenge to come to the all-party group.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered recent trends in employment rates.