Jobseekers (Back to Work Schemes) Bill

Sheila Gilmore Excerpts

Tuesday 19th March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hoban]

Absolutely. There are no league tables in place. We do not set targets for sanctions; I have made that point in previous discussions with, I think, the right hon. Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms). The decisions that need to be made are the right ones. They need to be based on whether people have breached the agreements they have set out with the jobcentre, and there are no targets in place.

Let me set out in a bit more detail the programmes that exist. The programmes might vary from a training course that the Government have paid for so that the claimant gains some essential skills that will increase their chances of finding work, or they might involve a community work placement, whereby claimants can pick up the basic disciplines, such as turning up on time, that every reasonable employer will expect.

We also know that those schemes work. Recent research on our mandatory work activity scheme found that nine in 10 participants said that they better recognised the benefits of a working routine, and around three quarters said that their confidence and ability to work as a team had improved. More than half said that they felt more positive about work than they did before attending.

[Sheila Gilmore (Edinburgh East) (Lab)]

Is it not the case that the research on the mandatory work schemes found that, afterwards, people were as likely to be on benefit as they were before?

[Mr Hoban]

The scheme is used particularly for those who are some distance from the labour market. We know that we need to make a range of interventions to get people to move closer and closer to the labour market. The scheme changes people’s attitude to work. Those on the scheme can put that work on their CV and demonstrate to employers that they are ready for work. That makes a contribution to moving them closer to work. As the evaluation that the hon. Lady referred to pointed out, people themselves feel the benefits of taking part in the scheme. It is therefore right that when claimants refuse to take up the support that is available, and then fail without good reason to attend these mandatory programmes, they face the consequences of their actions—a benefit sanction.

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[Mr Hoban]

The High Court upheld the steps that we took in setting out the detail in the regulations. As I said earlier, the letter that we sent to claimants who were required to participate in the schemes set out the fact that they could be subject to sanctions of up to 26 weeks’ worth of benefits. That is not the only communication we have with jobseekers. The jobseekers who come into Jobcentre Plus will have discussed the requirements with their personal adviser, so there is a range of ways in which we will communicate to jobseekers their obligations under the schemes. That is vital. It is important that people are aware of those obligations. We believe that the notices and regulations provide sufficient detail, and that will be backed up by the conversations and other communication that jobseekers have with personal advisers.

[Sheila Gilmore]

rose—

[Mr Hoban]

I want to make some more progress.

The Bill will ensure that the Government will not have to refund sanctions on the basis of the Court of Appeal’s judgment and will be able to make a decision in cases where no sanction decision has yet been made.

As I have previously stated, the Government have applied for leave to appeal to the Supreme Court. However, to ensure that we are not faced with having to repay benefit sanctions, we have had to press ahead with this fast-track legislation.

I would like to put it on record that I am grateful for the constructive way in which the right hon. Members for Birmingham, Hodge Hill and for East Ham have approached this topic. In supporting the Bill, they have allowed us to expedite its progress, thus safeguarding taxpayers’ money.

Following discussions last week with the shadow Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill, we will be proposing two Government amendments in Committee. The first will reiterate in the Bill that a claimant’s appeal rights against a sanction decision remain unchanged in all matters, apart from those covered by the High Court and Court of Appeal judgments. For example, when a claimant felt that they had good cause for not participating in one of these schemes, they would still be able to appeal to the first tier tribunal on the basis of good cause. That is a helpful reconfirmation of the right of claimants to appeal. Similarly, the Bill will not overturn appeals that have succeeded on the basis of good cause. I hope that our amendment on that provides the clarification that the right hon. Gentleman seeks.

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[Sheila Gilmore (Edinburgh East) (Lab)]

The Bill is not perhaps what some people think it is, nor perhaps what we would like to debate. It will not end various forms of work experience, whether we think that is a good or a bad idea, because the Government have put in place—and have done so very quickly—regulations to overcome mistakes in previous regulations.

We need a lengthy debate, and we need to think hard about what we do to help people find work, if there is work—often there is no work to find, which is the fundamental failure of many of these programmes. Whatever we call the schemes or however we dress them up, if the jobs are not there, no amount of job readiness and training will get people a job. They might make people readier for a job, which might not be a bad thing in itself, but it is an illusion to assume that if we simply introduce a programme and make people do it, suddenly a job will emerge at the end. It will not, unless there are jobs and demand in the economy.

It is the same for many people doing part-time jobs. We have had many debates in the past few weeks about the bedroom tax, and people have said, “Well, people can go out and get extra hours to pay the tax; it will be easy.” In the course of half an hour on Saturday afternoon knocking on doors in my constituency and asking people about this, I met two people who were working part time. They both wanted extra hours and had gone to their employers to ask whether extra hours were available but were told they were not. Ironically, if firms gave extra hours, that work would be taken away from someone else, giving them fewer hours or no job at all. Hours are short because the jobs are not there. Similarly, many job programmes have failed because, to a large extent, the jobs are not there.

Perhaps we should give more time to this debate, because we need to consider whether we are achieving what we should be achieving. Unfortunately—and I say this to people watching our debate—whatever the result of the vote at the end of today’s debate, it will not stop these programmes. Some people say that this is a vote on whether some of these so-called training programmes continue, but sadly it is not. I hope that we have further votes on the issue in future, because the new regulations, which may still be proved to be not as valid as the previous ones, have been introduced. Anyone out there who thinks that how the House votes today will bring an end to all those programmes will find that, sadly, that is not true.

If this were a situation involving parking regulations—my council introduced parking regulations, which were challenged in court and found to be invalid—and we were asking, in effect, for a sanction on sanctions or, in parking regulation terms, retrospectively forcing people to pay parking penalties which were unlawful at the time they were incurred, the Lib Dem and Tory Benches would be packed with Members saying how unfair that was. Even if we correct the regulations, that would not solve the problem. In the example I gave of my council, it corrected the regulations and issued new ones, and achieved the parking restrictions that it wanted, but it did not seek to go back to people and say to them, “Well, we can impose these penalties, because we will make it right retrospectively.” If it were any other subject, we would not see people sitting on their hands, which is what is happening today. Much attention has been focused on what the Labour party is doing, and rightly so; people are right to ask what we are doing. However, they also must ask what the Government parties are doing, because apart from the Minister, no one has come into the Chamber to speak in favour of what the Government are doing, and that speaks for itself.

A number of things have been said today that are simply not accurate. In one intervention, for example, a Government Back Bencher said that half the people going on the Work programme had got jobs. No one could seriously suggest such a figure. The only time I have heard the Government use the word “half”—[Interruption.] The hon. Member did mention the Work programme, but perhaps he did not intend to do so. The only programme that was mentioned where the word “half” was used was the pilot for the work experience programmes that my hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) has described so thoroughly. I am talking about the research on the pilot programme. Half of those on that pilot programme, which was for 1,300 people, were off benefit in 13 weeks, but being “off benefit” is not necessarily the same as being in a job. After the results of that pilot were published, there were no further figures on those schemes. No one has actually said what the success rate of those schemes has been.

The hon. Member for Battersea (Jane Ellison) referred to a visit that she and I and other members of the Select Committee made to a jobcentre today as part of our inquiry into the Work programme. Yes, some people who are providing the programme did feel that their morale had perhaps been undermined by its results and outcomes and the fact that they had been told that it was worse than doing nothing. However, those outcomes were the ones that the Government themselves set for their own programme; it is not something that someone else invented. It is not those individuals who should feel that they are to blame; it is the set-up of the whole programme that is at fault. It is unfortunate that those people felt that they were being criticised.

If the hon. Lady had stayed to make a speech, perhaps she would have told the House about some of the other things that we heard. Although of course the providers speak up for their programmes, all of them made the point that if they had more resources they would be able to do far more and do far better.

One provider we heard from was putting considerable additional resources into individuals to get them job-ready and hopefully to find them jobs. They were putting some people through programmes that cost £900 a head out of their own resources. If those people get jobs as a result of being part of that Work provider’s programme, no doubt the Government will say, “We managed to do that through the Work programme, and it was the cheapest Work programme ever.” The truth is that it would not be cheap, because those programme providers are supplementing the cost by a considerable amount. They all said that if it were not in fact the cheapest Work programme, it could be doing a lot better. Cheap is not always good; cheap is sometimes extremely shoddy and of poor quality. As we all know, a cheap pair of shoes will not last very long.

Much of what has been said about the quality of the programmes is poor. I want to have the debate about sanctions, because the experience of my constituents is that the sanctions regime has not only been increased in extent but has lost discretion. Discretion has flown out of it all together, so that many people are finding that they are sanctioned for things that they hardly understand. Many people who are deemed to be job-ready are actually suffering from mental illness or a learning disability and they are the people who may be sanctioned. I therefore welcome the new clause that provides for a report on sanctions. The sooner that comes through, the better.

I ask the Government yet again, as I have before, to look at individual cases. I raised one with the Minister at DWP questions. A young man was on the Work programme for a year and a quarter, but there was no real progress. He sourced a training course—a very good training course—to learn construction skills. That would have involved eight weeks of unpaid work, which he was quite prepared to do, as part of a structured scheme, followed by 13 weeks of paid work and the prospect of a job at the end. When I raised that case with the Minister, he simply said, “The reason he is not getting to do that is the Scottish Government’s funding.” I will come back to the Minister on that case because that is not so. The underlying issue is that the Work programme provider could not provide anything like that quality. In a year and a quarter, the provider had never offered that young person that sort of training. That should be the significant point; it should not be a blame-game—“Oh, it’s the fault of the Scottish Government, Jobcentre Plus, or the Work programme provider.” That is the merry-go-round that that person is on; as far as I am aware, unless something has come in today, he is still on it.

I am not against good schemes, good work experience, or sanctions, but I am against poor-quality schemes. The Government are so gung-ho, saying that it does not matter that this measure is retrospective, that they have made mistakes and will go back over it. That is not acceptable, and we must stand up and say that clearly. I am sorry that the Government have not been prepared at any stage to say, “We did get it wrong and we are going not only to alter that bit of regulation but put real effort into improving our employability schemes.”