Unemployment

Debate between Oliver Heald and Anne Begg

Wednesday 14th December 2011 Commons Chamber

[Oliver Heald]

The hon. Lady should talk to young people in Spain, where youth unemployment is very high—as much as 30%, I am told. The same is true in Italy. The fact is that youth unemployment is a European problem that must be tackled in the eurozone and right across the continent.

The Government are concentrating on a Work programme that, after 12 months, gives people individualised help to look at what skills and assistance they need to get them back into work, and that, for the first time, gives the disabled a chance of getting the help they need. That is a good thing. That programme and the youth contract, with its job subsidies and extra incentive payments, are not signs of an uncaring Government.

[Dame Anne Begg (Aberdeen South) (Lab)]

Everything the hon. Gentleman describes counts for nothing if there are no jobs for those people to get. That is the problem that we face today: there are simply not enough jobs in the economy for everyone who is out of work to get into work.

[Oliver Heald]

The hon. Lady makes the very important point that we need growth in our economy, and that to achieve that we need a range of measures to stimulate growth. I agree, and that is what the Government announced in the autumn statement. She should not, however, treat the whole country as though it were the same. We have much lower unemployment in my constituency—indeed, it has fallen this month—and there is no doubt that jobs can be found, but that is not true everywhere. The picture is different in different parts of the country, but if one looks at the overall picture one can say, month on month, that we have more people in the work force than we had last month. We have seen an improvement in some parts of the country, such as the part I represent, so the picture is not hopeless. The Government have a difficult task and are tackling it seriously, but sometimes we should look a little more widely at the labour market and the trends within it. We are asking people to work to an older age and to take on jobs that they might not previously have done because they were on incapacity benefit or were otherwise out of the labour market. So, we are asking more people to try to find work against a background in which that is not easy, but I believe—certainly the research shows this—that it is possible for us to see our GDP rise and our people go into work. What the Government are doing is along the right lines.

Sir John Rose said in a speech about a year ago that in Britain we train people to be hairdressers when we need engineers and IT specialists. One of the good things about the Government’s apprenticeships and skills programme is that it is targeted on areas in which we have found it difficult to create skills and on areas that are hard to fill, so there is a better match between skills and vacancies. The number of vacancies runs at between 400,000 and 500,000 each month, about 40% of which are in areas with skills shortages or areas that are hard to fill. If we can better match the skills to the vacancies, that could help. Overall, I think the Government are on the right lines.

Work and Pensions (CSR)

Debate between Oliver Heald and Anne Begg

Thursday 4th November 2010 Westminster Hall

[Miss Begg]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right; the issue seems to arise particularly with sanctions on housing benefit. When giving evidence to the Select Committee yesterday, Lord Freud suggested that sanctions on housing benefit would follow people wherever they went. The only way for them to get rid of the sanction would be to find a job, but some might simply not be able to do so. It could depend on where people live, as in some areas it is difficult to find a job.

[Mr Oliver Heald (North East Hertfordshire) (Con)]

I am pleased to hear that the hon. Lady will not be retiring. It is good news for our Select Committee, as she is an excellent Chairman. What is her take on the fact that, for the first time, we are to have a really focused Work programme and a universal credit? That will remove many of the problems with withdrawal rates that the Committee highlighted in the past. Of course it is an expensive thing to do, but it is the right thing to do. Is it not right to praise the Government for doing that rather than concentrating on the cost savings that need to be made to make it affordable?

[Miss Begg]

I shall call the hon. Gentleman my hon. Friend, as he is a member of the Select Committee. I shall deal with the universal credit in a moment. However, my hon. Friend is right about the Work programme.

The point is that the Work programme does not kick in until people have been out of work for a year, unless they have come through the incapacity benefit and employment and support allowance route or unless they are young and unemployed, when they will come into the Work programme after six months. The sanction will kick in before the individual has had the very expensive help that we hope the Work programme will rightly provide. It is a combination of there possibly not being a job and there not being any specialist help. Even if the youngest child has just turned five, lone parents might have been out of the workplace for 20 years looking after the older children. They will need extra help, but they will not get it because the Work programme does not kick in until the year is up.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Heald]

The hon. Lady makes her point. There is some research, which I do not think has been published yet, that looks at the eastern region and London. It comes to the conclusion that the work capability assessments are working far better in the eastern region than in London. Talking to providers about why that might be, they raise the point that about a third of the population in London comes from minority communities. I thought the Minister might want to look at that issue.

My next point is one I mentioned before about getting CVs and help to young people early on. I made the point about going online. I hope that that is something that the Government will look at.

With regard to the movement from incapacity benefit and employment and support allowance on to jobseeker’s allowance, one issue that needs to be looked at is the fitness of our work force and the people who are moving from one benefit to the other. There is no doubt that there are a lot of people who start off with a back condition or possibly stress, and it is not treated quickly enough and becomes a chronic condition. I have made that point in debates such as this for years, and I think it is time that the Department of Health and the DWP looked more carefully at the issue of fitness. About two years ago, Dame Carol Black produced an excellent report about fitness and the work force. I know that she is still involved and I hope that it will be possible to build on her work and try to do more in this area, so that we end up with a work force who are fitter.

[Miss Begg]

Another problem is where employers employ occupational health professionals to assess people, and assess them as not being fit for work, when Atos has assessed them as fit for work for the work capability assessment. That is acting as a barrier very often for employers to accept people into the work force.

[Mr Heald]

That is right. Another point to make is that the Department of Health has a major group working on the issue of fitness, including aspects of fitness at work. I think that is something that the DWP should also be involved in. It should be a joint exercise, and Carol Black’s work should be continued.

I want to make a point about the consumer price index, and then a few general remarks. The consumer prices index is the European measure of inflation. There is no doubt that the retail price index distorts the measure, by including mortgage costs, which are erratic. I believe that in the longer term CPI is the better measure, and I understand that in Europe there are discussions about how to include housing costs in it. Over time CPI will be improved, whereas RPI has been rather erratic over the years, and has often led to poor results.

The overall effect of the changes is to give value for money to the taxpayer. It is an issue of fairness. I know that people say, “Housing and other benefits are being cut, and that is unfair on individuals who may have to move or who will have to negotiate with their landlords for a lower rent.” I understand that argument, but how can we explain to someone who takes home the average wage of £374 a week net that in difficult economic times, when they are hard pressed, it is right to spend more than £20,000 a year housing someone in a better house than they can afford? It is a hard argument to make.