“Get Britain Working” White Paper

Sammy Wilson Excerpts

Tuesday 26th November 2024 Commons Chamber

[Liz Kendall]

Yes. What my hon. Friend and many hon. Members have highlighted today are lots of individual examples of really good working, but we are not joining them up. They are not a central part of our employment system, but they absolutely should be. We know that we need extra investment, and the Chancellor has put £240 million into this endeavour, but we are not getting the most out of the money we are spending because it is not co-ordinated and joined up. That is what we mean by delivering investment and reform together. If it is locally led and involves people who are doing all this fantastic work, we can make a really big difference.

[Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)]

I welcome the initiatives and recognise that this is not a problem that has been created by the Government; it has been with us for a long time and started long before July this year. Northern Ireland has the highest level of economic inactivity in the UK, despite the fact that I can think of many initiatives in my own constituency for people with learning difficulties, for apprenticeships in certain sectors, for the work of local colleges and so on. Despite all that, the problem persists—and that is in a place with almost full employment. Can the Secretary of State give an assurance that, despite a Budget that will make it more difficult to recruit, she can set objectives for the number of people she believes can be brought from unemployment into work as a result of the initiatives?

[Liz Kendall]

The right hon. Gentleman raises many important points. As I said earlier, it is absolutely the case that Northern Ireland has the highest level of economic inactivity in the UK. We will set clear objectives for our plans as we work with the devolved Administrations, and at local level, to get the levels of economic inactivity down. That will be challenging because, as I said earlier, only 3% of people who are economically inactive get back to work each year. We need to increase that, and the only way we can do it is by more fully joining up work, health and skills support. Too much of the focus of welfare reform over the past 14 years has been on the benefit system alone. Clearly, the benefit system can incentivise or disincentivise work. We want it to incentivise work, but we also know that we need to join up work, health and skills if we are to get every part of the United Kingdom working again.