Covid-19

Debate between Nadhim Zahawi and Yvette Cooper

Tuesday 25th May 2021 Commons Chamber

[Nadhim Zahawi]

Yes, he did address this issue in his press conference. I can read the right hon. Member for Leicester South (Jonathan Ashworth) the words from that press conference, because he says from a sedentary position, “He did not.” The Prime Minister said, speaking about Bolton:

“given the caution that I think we have to exercise with this new variant, the risk of extra transmissibility, I would urge people just to think twice about that. That’s what we’re saying. I think that we want people in those areas to recognise that there is extra risk, an extra disruption, a threat of disruption to progress caused by this new variant and just to exercise their discretion and judgment, in a way I’m sure that they have been throughout this pandemic and will continue to do so, I hope very much.”

Those were his words, and the guidance was in place.

[Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)]

The Minister has done a good job on the vaccines, but this statement is utterly chaotic and completely confused. What advice is he actually giving to people in the north-west or in West Yorkshire about going to the pub, about weddings and about travel—even about whether, if they are allowed to travel out of Bolton, they are allowed to travel to Portugal, on the green list, for holidays? Is not the reality that he is so uncomfortable about giving any advice because he knows the reason he is putting these people in Bolton, in West Yorkshire and in other places in this position is that the Government failed to put India on the red list earlier? Over 400 people from India came into the country with the Indian variant, and putting India on the red list would have prevented it from spreading to thousands of other people in the community. Will he apologise to people in the areas that are affected with the additional restrictions he is advising because of the Government’s failure?

[Nadhim Zahawi]

I do not agree with the right hon. Lady, as she will not be surprised to hear. I have already talked about how visiting families are impacted and pubs and hospitality are affected, and about the exercise of caution and being careful. She will recall that when India was put on the red list on 23 April, it was a full six days later that this particular variant was identified by the experts—the virologists—as a variant of interest, and a full two weeks later before it became a variant of concern. So her point, actually, is made unfairly.

Jobs and the Unemployed

Debate between Nadhim Zahawi and Yvette Cooper

Wednesday 7th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper]

My hon. Friend is right, which is why all young people, no matter what the difficulties they face, should have a guarantee of a job, training or support to get into work. She might also be interested to know that significant numbers of the people going into the future jobs fund were disabled, so it was providing additional support for people who might have found it more difficult to get their first job elsewhere in the economy and to get that start and get into work.

The former Chief Secretary to the Treasury, the right hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr Laws), told the House that DWP officials had advised that the future jobs fund was not effective and not working. That is not what young people and voluntary sector providers are telling us. For example, the Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations said:

“It is obviously very disappointing that the Future Jobs Fund is not continuing as it was a highly successful initiative which was popular with employers and employees”.

Angie Wilcox, whom I met, from the Manor residents association in Hartlepool, said that

“in one area alone, manor residents have recruited 118 young people, of which the first 17 finished their six months last month, all 17 secured sustained employment...This is a vital programme that must stay”.

So what advice did DWP officials really give to the Treasury? The Employment Minister, the right hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell (Chris Grayling), has so far refused to publish any advice or evidence that it is not effective. That is because, in the end, he does not have any. He has commissioned a detailed evaluation of the future jobs fund for 2011, so there is no evidence to show that the fund is not working and plenty of testimony from young people and employers across the country that it is transforming people’s lives. The Government did not talk to a single voluntary sector provider before they axed the fund, and they did not talk to a single young person on the fund before they made their decisions—actually, the Prime Minister did. He talked to young people at a social enterprise in Liverpool, and told them he would keep the fund. He said that

“it is a good scheme, and good schemes we will keep.”

Was he setting out to deceive those young people, or does he just not care about the broken promises from the election?

The Employment Minister has, I understand, been back to that same corner of Liverpool to see the same social enterprise. He has told us in previous responses that he has not received any representations about the decision to cut the future jobs fund. Yet someone who was at the meeting said that

“when Chris Grayling visited Everton on the 26 May we raised with him the very negative impact cutting the Future Jobs Fund will have and 2 local people said the difference having a future jobs fund position was already having on their lives, their self esteem and their long term job prospects...We asked him specifically about whether his replacement scheme was going to give at least the minimum wage. He couldn’t guarantee that at all...The FJF has already made a big difference to us in Everton... Young people on the FJF have got their heads back up and are going for it.”

So what other excuses have the Government given us for cutting the future jobs fund and the support for the unemployed? The Secretary of State claimed on 8 June that the cost of the programme was “running out of control”. That is rubbish—it is a fixed-cost programme. It costs just over £6,000 per job and is paid when the job is delivered. Furthermore, the taxpayer saves six months of benefits too. It is a fixed cost, so it cannot escalate out of control.

The difference between us is that we want 90,000 people in jobs. The Government would rather have them on the dole than pay for the extra support that those young people and long-term unemployed need. So, from next year, they are cutting the rest of the guarantee. In total, they are cutting £1.2 billion from support for the unemployed—and they tell us it is all right because there is going to be a Work programme. But where is it? The soonest the Secretary of State will be able to deliver it is next summer, but what about the people in the meantime who need support and help? What about the young people leaving school, college or university this summer who need help? What about the people who have been unemployed for six months and who need support now? Yet now is the time when he is cutting future jobs fund opportunities in favour of a Work programme that cannot be in place for at least another 12 months.

[Nadhim Zahawi (Stratford-on-Avon) (Con)]

rose—

[Yvette Cooper]

I shall give way. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman can provide some clarity on that point.

[Nadhim Zahawi]

The right hon. Lady talks about the young people coming out of schools and colleges. Did she think about them when she was in government and borrowing £500 million a day? Did she think about their future while the Government were borrowing £100 for every £300 they were spending?

[Yvette Cooper]

Had we not increased borrowing during the recession, we would have seen recession turn into slump, millions of people on the dole being scarred for life, and huge increases in repossessions. Unless the hon. Gentleman is prepared to support the economy and growth, he will never see the deficit come down. The best way to get the deficit down is to keep the economy growing, and the only way to get us through the recession was to support the economy at a very difficult time. He seems to want to return to the madness of the 1930s when economies across the world were pushed into depression and slump as a result of the kind of narrow-minded, short-term policies that he is now advocating.