Economic Regeneration (Barnsley)

Debate between Nigel Adams and Dan Jarvis

Thursday 16th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Dan Jarvis]

I am very grateful to my hon. Friend for her kind remarks and for the useful and constructive contribution she has made to this debate. I completely agree about apprenticeships. They are a vital pathway for young people, bridging the gap between the classroom and the world of work. I am proud of the work that the Labour Government did in increasing the number of apprenticeship places. I hope to work constructively with Members across the House to persuade businesses across the country, not only in Barnsley and South Yorkshire, to take on more apprenticeships. An apprenticeship is a valuable opportunity for young people that gives them vital experience of the world of work.

The Government have axed Train to Gain, which provided work-based training to 575,000 people in 2009-10. They have also scrapped fees remission for people over 25 who are doing level 2 and level 3 courses. That is partly why the Minister for Further Education, Skills and Lifelong Learning has had to admit that adult apprentices may have to borrow up to £9,000 to fund their training.

[Nigel Adams (Selby and Ainsty) (Con)]

The hon. Gentleman is making a great case for Barnsley, which is a very proud town. I appreciate that he has not been in the House for all that long since his magnificent victory a few months ago, but it probably has not escaped his notice that the Labour Government were in power for 13 years. If there is a big skills shortage in Barnsley, does he not therefore accept that his own party has to take some of the responsibility for that?

[Dan Jarvis]

I am incredibly grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that intervention, which gives me the opportunity to remind the House—although there will be no need to remind people in Barnsley—of the impact of the policies of the Conservative Governments led by Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s. People in Barnsley will recall the damage that the Conservative Governments who were in power until 1997 did to such places. I will be very happy to walk through Barnsley with the hon. Gentleman, who is always welcome to come and visit—it is not terribly far from his constituency. I will be delighted to show him the real, long-lasting structural improvements that were made in Barnsley as a result of 13 years of Labour government. In effect, the cuts made by the Conservative Governments of the 1980s and 1990s created structural, long-lasting, generational decay in Barnsley, and that takes a significant period to overcome. I believe that the Labour Government made considerable progress during the 13 years when they were in office, and that is clear to people when they walk through the streets of Barnsley. The Building Schools for the Future programme is a classic example; it has provided state-of-the-art infrastructure for kids who go to school in Barnsley. We can be proud of that record. I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for the opportunity to make that point.

As I said, the Government have axed Train to Gain, which was a valuable scheme that provided a significant amount of work-based training to hundreds of thousands of people. They have also scrapped fees remission for people over 25 who are doing level 2 and level 3 courses, and the Minister has had to admit that adult apprentices may have to borrow £9,000 to fund their training. As Labour Members will be well aware, the Government have also cancelled the Barnsley-inspired future jobs fund, pioneered by Councillor Steve Houghton, the leader of Barnsley metropolitan borough council. I remind the House that the FJF provided jobs for 100,000 18 to 24-year-olds, with a valuable training element. Overall, I believe that those decisions represent a reckless underinvestment in the skills needed for economic regeneration and are a body blow to the aspirations of young people not just in Barnsley, but across the country.

Barnsley stands to be particularly affected by the changes in benefits made by this Government. I fully agree that welfare needs to be reformed, but I do not believe that we are going about it in the right way. Above all, the changes do nothing directly to support new jobs. Across the country, there are five times as many claimants as there are open positions. We risk the injustice of penalising people for failing to get jobs that simply do not exist.

There are several ways in which the reforms undermine job creation and stop people getting off benefits. The assumption that the unemployed are earning the minimum wage in the calculation for universal credit will make it virtually impossible for many people to set up a business. The new enterprise allowance cuts out anyone who has not been on jobseeker’s allowance for six months. People coming off disability allowance and people who have just been made redundant who want to set themselves up in business are being told that they have to waste six months uselessly claiming jobseeker’s allowance before they will be eligible for the new enterprise allowance. That costs taxpayers more for people who want only to stand on their own two feet. Will the Government look again at their welfare reform programme as it clearly needs improvement?

The problems facing Barnsley are indicative of those facing towns across the country. The message seems self-evident: we can either sacrifice everything to balancing the books in a way that undermines the economic stability of the country or we can tackle these problems head-on. This is not a request for unlimited spending or an end to reform; it is just a request for the Government to do their bit so that we in Barnsley can fulfil our potential. For now, the Government’s approach is ensuring that places such as Barnsley bear a disproportionate burden. If this Government are to live up to their promises, if they are to make a claim to the basic principles of fairness, and if their cuts and reforms are to have any legitimacy with the British people, that must change.