Jobcentre Plus

Debate between Nigel Mills and Sheila Gilmore

Thursday 10th July 2014 Westminster Hall

[Nigel Mills]

That is exactly the problem—how we motivate engagement on both sides, which we will need with universal credit and any in-work conditionality. We have to find a way of gathering reliable data. It is similar to a high-level instinct, or perhaps real-time information will provide something. Perhaps the RTI feed will show that the person is still in employment or even at the same employer—if we wanted to track the data that far back—but that looks to be a pretty clunky and limited way of checking things. Unless there are flags that show when employment has stopped, flagging it back to the jobcentre, we would not know that people had ceased to be in sustained employment, perhaps meeting the 12 or 26-week target, or whatever was set in that situation. I am not sure that there is an easy solution to anything, but for us to find a set of targets and work routes that work in such a situation will be important to how the jobcentre role develops.

The next area that I want to touch on is one that was topical last summer, when we started the inquiry: what happens to people when their two years on the Work programme finishes and they become the jobcentre’s responsibility again. This time last year, I remember speaking to the staff at my local jobcentre and they were not entirely sure what they were going to be doing with people in that situation when the first Work programme cohorts finished. Jobcentres have an important role to play, because we are talking about people who have not got a job in their first year of unemployment and who then got through the Work programme for two years and have not found sustained work. We could expect them to need some intensive support, but it is a little hard to see that jobcentres would be geared up for that, having not been doing it for people in that key two-year period previously. So what would we do with them?

Last week, I was pleased to meet a new subcontractor, Acorn, which is in Derbyshire dealing with what I think are now called community work placements, a new set of rolled-out private sector providers offering a different type of Work programme service that is not the Work programme and does something subtly different. I confess that the procurement of the service and how we chose the providers has passed me by, but in the east midlands, for example, we have G4S. Luckily for the east midlands in some ways, it is not one of the Work programme providers, because we have a completely separate, third firm in Derbyshire to do things. We have, however, found a sensible programme of community placements that are not meant to be free labour for unscrupulous private sector operators, but are meant to be getting people who have gone through three years of support finding something that at least gets them used to working normal working hours and some skills on their CV, making them more employable.

[Sheila Gilmore]

Obviously, it is early days to know how the post-Work programme arrangements are working, but a complaint of many of my constituents about the Work programme was that it was not particularly intensive. If anything, it was very light touch—“Come in every seven or eight weeks”, and sometimes the only contact was by phone. It seemed to concentrate everything on CV writing and applying for jobs. If the more intensive approach is important, should it not be starting much earlier than three years into unemployment?

[Nigel Mills]

I agree. I was trying to explore with G4S when I had that meeting with it and Acorn exactly what the financial remuneration was for successful outcomes under the community work placement, and how that compared with the rewards under the Work programme for some of the harder-to-deal-with people who are further from the labour market. I was trying to work out whether we could expect Work programme providers to do such work placements if they had someone whom they were struggling with on the Work programme. Is there a need to tweak the contracts or to change the incentives slightly? We could try to get such support provided during the two years, not after the two years. For some reason, they were not totally inclined to give me a clear answer on those numbers. Perhaps it was the wrong time to ask them.

It is always about the sequencing of things—how do we step up the intensity of support at the right time? I am sure that we want a system in which if somebody really needs the most intensive support, they get it early in the process, rather than one in which we see how long we can demoralise them before we give them what they probably needed in the first place.

It is intriguing. When looking at the role of the jobcentre we thought, perhaps slightly competitively, that we had a real chance to prove that where a Work programme provider has failed, the jobcentre can help people and sort the situation out. But we have ended up with another outsourced programme. Does that suggest that in many ways we do not feel that the jobcentre’s role is to provide any intensive support to people—that its role is enforcement plus some coaching in the early days and some relatively light-touch support? I am not saying that that is my view, but it appears now that for every situation we come across we find a different outsourced programme.

Finally I want to touch on Universal Jobmatch and the role of IT. I see Universal Jobmatch as a great success. I played with the old job search system in jobcentres and looking at the new one it is clearly much easier to use—for example, people can work it at home—and looks like the right direction of travel. I share the hope that Monster has managed to fix the problem of the artificial, unethical or non-existent job placements that had been going on to Jobmatch, to try to make it as effective a system as possible. I suspect that there is no way that these things can be perfect, and that people will always be able to get through any filters to put rogue jobs on, so it is a matter of how effectively we can monitor the service and get those taken off once they are found. But clearly the problem should not have been on the scale that it got to.

As for IT, having enough computers in jobcentres—and enough staff to support people using them—is quite important, especially when we are requiring IT job searches and will sanction people who do not do them. The library in Heanor, a town in my seat, had to close for reasons of maintenance—or the lack of it—and we lost the IT provision in the town centre. It then became quite hard for claimants who did not have IT access at home and had lost their library. Trying to convince the jobcentre that it needed to find at least some temporary solution to get IT provision back into the town and to support people while the library was finding an alternative site was not as easy as I might have liked it to be.

I suspect the vision for modern jobcentres is for them to have lots of computer terminals so that IT job searches are perfectly possible. I know that one of the jobcentres in my seat was down for an early upgrade to get extra IT, but we need to make sure that every jobcentre has IT provision. If we are expecting people to use the service themselves and will sanction them if they do not, we have to make IT facilities available to them.

We can do more with the Universal Jobmatch system, as the Chair of the Select Committee remarked earlier. We ought to be looking to see whether we can make all the data on it flow two ways. Surely it can be a great tool. If someone has put their CV on it and has applied for 100 jobs but has never, ever been put forward into the best 50 applicants—or whatever number get prioritised—for the employer to see, that must surely say to somebody that that person’s CV is not good enough and they either need to produce a better one, or they need to have some training urgently to get more skills to put on it, or they are applying for completely the wrong jobs.

There ought to be a way of using the system to spot that some individual jobseekers need that kind of support—a better CV or some more skills—or perhaps even to spot that, say, there have been no jobs within a 20-mile radius that match the skills on a person’s CV in the last year, so there is no point in them keeping on applying for things that they are not going to get. That could then create a flag back to their jobcentre adviser, to say, “Something needs to happen with this person.” If we can find innovative ways of using the system to provide extra support—rather than just forcing people to go on it and mandating them to do so many job applications, some of which they are not too enthused about anyway—we might get a far better result for the investment we have made than if it is used purely as a job search tool.

Overall, the conclusion of the report is clearly that jobcentres do great work and have an important role. To share my own experience, when I have held jobs fairs in my seat the two jobcentres have been extremely helpful in getting employers and jobseekers there. They are working practically to try to tackle the problem, which is a pleasure to see in my seat.

Finance (No.2) Bill

Debate between Nigel Mills and Sheila Gilmore

Tuesday 8th April 2014 Commons Chamber

[Nigel Mills]

I am sure my hon. Friend’s maths are absolutely right.

If we are to review taxes and rates, I am intrigued by the idea of having, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (Mr Redwood) said, a wide-ranging dynamic assessment of tax rates. Let us have a look and work out exactly the right rates for various taxes. Are we in the right place, or are we throwing away revenue and destroying business activity by having certain rates in the wrong place? I would like to understand the impact on small businesses of the jobs tax or employees’ national insurance. I would be keen to know the impact of fuel duty rates and of the tax on energy bills. I suspect those measures are doing far more damage to our small businesses, and the number of jobs they can support, than other things. A wide-ranging study of the impact of tax on small business could be an interesting exercise and could direct the way forward for policy. I suspect that it would not go in the area the Opposition want. They seem to want an expensive hike in the indirect taxes on manufacturing that do so much damage.

We ought to welcome people moving in the right direction. In 13 years in government, Labour favoured property taxes via the council tax. They hiked it up thinking that people would not notice. It is intriguing that they have now realised that it is extremely unpopular for those taxes to get too high, and that perhaps it is easier to try to focus on direct tax rates.

In conclusion, the Opposition amendment is in many ways a complete waste of our time. It is absolutely right to get the corporation tax rate down to 20%. I suspect that that is the end of that journey and then we can look at various other measures to support small businesses. Reducing the main rate down to 20% will not stop our support for small businesses. Let us get on and do it: it is the right thing to do.

[Sheila Gilmore]

For those who have already made the decision that they want to reduce corporation tax in this way, it is easy to characterise the debate as one group of businesses being pitted against another. The debate has to be taken in context. On the basis of that argument, it would be very difficult to suggest any changes, because somebody would always be able to say, “Ah, but you are pitting one group against another.”

We hear a lot of warm words about small businesses in this House. We are told frequently that they will be the driver of the economy and that the economic recovery depends on them. It is therefore disappointing for this proposal to be so quickly dismissed as irrelevant or inappropriate. If the amendment asked for it to happen without further review, Government Members would no doubt be telling us that we should not make such suggestions without looking at the impact. If we ask for a review to look at the impact they will tell us, “Well, that’s no good; you should just be doing it if you really believe in it,” rather than engaging with the issue.

Small businesses find that business rates are a large element of their costs, particularly when setting up and trying to get their businesses off the ground. A constituent of mine, with a friend, was setting up a fitness business—a very competitive market—from scratch, with a particular appeal to women. They called themselves “Fitness Chicks”. I thought that that might perhaps put off older women, but nevertheless they had a real ambition to get the business off the ground. They said that rates were the biggest thing holding them back as they were setting the business up.

Finance (No. 2) Bill

Debate between Nigel Mills and Sheila Gilmore

Wednesday 17th April 2013 Commons Chamber

[Nigel Mills]

Am I right in thinking that the second sign of madness is to keep doing the same thing and expecting a different result? I think that that applies to introducing more and more complexity and assuming that the outcome will eventually be different.

[Sheila Gilmore]

Surely the problem with this line of argument is that it does not establish what is cause and what is effect. The assumption seems to be that the fault lies with the fact that tax is too complicated and that there is too much of it, which somehow encourages people to avoid it. Perhaps a complicated tax system, and many of the regulations that exist, have been made necessary by the very fact that people try to avoid tax.

[Nigel Mills]

The hon. Lady is right. I have not sought to defend those who peddle tax avoidance schemes. It is probably human nature for us all to try to minimise our liabilities. I personally think that we should try to adjust our tax regimes so that they get much closer to taxing the real profit that is declared, rather than allowing a collection of reliefs, allowances, incentives and so forth to provide scope for manipulation of the various circumstances in which people find themselves. However, I accept that people would still try to get round the simplest tax code in the world, and that we would need provisions to stop them.

My amendments are designed to ensure that, if the Revenue uses this power, it uses it to deal with the largest, most outrageous schemes. We do not want it to go around threatening all the small taxpayers who are simply trying to go about their way of life. I was not convinced that the wording of the Bill, and certainly not the wording proposed by the right hon. Member for Oldham West and Royton, would meet those concerns. I tried to provide a de minimis: the tax at stake would have to be above a certain amount before the rules could be applied. That would provide certainty, ensuring that the vast majority of taxpayers would not be subject to some retrospective, random rewriting of the law.

Jobs and Social Security

Debate between Nigel Mills and Sheila Gilmore

Wednesday 28th November 2012 Commons Chamber

[Nigel Mills (Amber Valley) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman). I think that I agree with most of what he said. I certainly agree that on this issue we need cross-party consensus and not political point-scoring. It is a pity that his Front Benchers did not take note of that in drafting their motion and chose to play politics instead of dealing with the substance.

Whatever our concerns about the performance of the Work programme to date, it beggars belief to suggest that people would have been better off left to their own devices, with none of the support that it has been providing, and that more of them would have found work in the difficult economic climate we have seen over the past 18 months. That is a grave insult to the providers and their employees who have been working hard trying to help people who have been unemployed for a long time. We have to give the programme somewhat more time than its first year before we draw any real conclusions about its success. We can see from the data published by the trade association that its performance is improving, and that is consistent with what I have seen on the ground in my constituency.

[Sheila Gilmore (Edinburgh East) (Lab)]

The problem I have with quoting the additional figures that have emerged from the trade association is that for the past year and a half we have been lectured on the fact that we could not have any interim information about how the Work programme is going because the data had to be properly evaluated and reliable. Yet because the published data do not suit the Government, we are suddenly having all these unverified data thrown at us to tell us that things are not really how we think they are. Why was all this kept secret?

[Nigel Mills]

I am not sure that I am the best person to answer that question. However, when we have a programme that is running for seven years, with people being put on to it for two years, we cannot draw many conclusions from the data in the first few months of its operation. A decent period will have to elapse before we get some reliable data that will have some meaning and can be used to look at trends. I see why we have official data to the end of July this year, but data since then would have more relevance if we also had data from the first three months of the programme.

No Member of this House seriously disputes the need to provide those with most barriers in their way with the additional support that they need to get back to work. Many such people have been out of work for a long time and will need help with serious issues in order to build up confidence and have any chance of getting back to work. To be fair, the scheme of the previous Government towards the end of their time in office was not radically different from that introduced by the current Government. This Government have accelerated the change, introduced a more consistent programme over the whole country and brought the strands of different schemes into one programme, but the direction of travel is not entirely different. In fact, many providers involved with the previous scheme are also involved in the current one. It is not sensible to say that the Work programme is doing the wrong thing and is a terrible idea, and that its support is completely wrong. Where does that leave us? Surely it is not the Opposition’s policy to have no support at all for the long-term unemployed.

Finance Bill

Debate between Nigel Mills and Sheila Gilmore

Tuesday 3rd July 2012 Commons Chamber

[Sheila Gilmore]

That is indeed the case. Conducting research and finding good evidence before making and changing policy is of paramount importance. We have seen that in respect of many aspects of this Budget. We saw it in the debate yesterday in respect of the 50p tax rate. There were a lot of hypotheticals—a lot of “maybes” and “perhapses”—but there was not a lot of solid evidence.

This has been a poor piece of policy making. I congratulate the Government on turning, but if they had thought things through first, they would never have had to turn.

[Nigel Mills]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Edinburgh East (Sheila Gilmore). We have heard each other speak quite a lot over the last eight weeks or so. It is also a pleasure to have a chance to talk on VAT measures.

I will start by addressing the Opposition’s new clause 12. If we are talking about ill-thought-through measures that should not have been brought forward, this is a prime example. It would cost £12 billion if it were in place for a year, not that the Opposition know how much it would cost or how they would pay for it. It is intriguing to ponder how they can tick off the Government for announcing a U-turn that costs a few million pounds a year and accuse us of not having a balanced Budget because of it, while they have a proposal for a £12 billion hole in the Budget that would do untold damage to the public finances, probably completely wreck our country’s reputation for trying to sort out its deficit and lead us into a situation none of us would even want to dream about.

Finance (No. 4) Bill

Debate between Nigel Mills and Sheila Gilmore

Thursday 19th April 2012 Commons Chamber

[Nigel Mills]

The hon. Lady is tempting me to make an even more broad-ranging speech than I had intended, and if I were to talk about such matters, I suspect I might be in danger of being ruled out of order. Let me repeat that there are things that would be nice to have but that are unaffordable in the current situation. Difficult decisions have had to be taken and spending has had to be targeted where it is most needed.

Returning to the topic of the granny tax, I do not feel guilt—that is the wrong word—but I do strongly believe that we need to simplify our tax system. Setting up the OTS is a great measure that this Government have taken, and it has performed the tasks given to it incredibly well. Those of us who advocate tax simplification have to accept that whenever we try to simplify tax, it is likely that some people will win and others will lose out. At a time of budget constraint, there is no way of softening the blow on those who will be losers, so we are left with a choice between muddling on as we are, with a ridiculously complicated and clunky tax system, or trying to simplify it in the hope that in the long run we will end up with a far better system.

[Sheila Gilmore]

rose—

[Nigel Mills]

I have given way many times, so I shall not do so again.

I am not sure that the Government have quite gone down the model line by picking up on the key points made in the OTS report on pensioner taxation. However, if we consider the tax system for pensioners—with higher personal allowances for those over 65 and those over 75, the tapering or claw-back of money depending on how much income they have, as well as all the other different allowances—we can see that the situation is incredibly confusing.