Jobs and Work

Debate between Steve Reed and Vince Cable

Wednesday 11th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[Vince Cable]

The fact that youth unemployment has fallen by 100,000 in the last year is significantly owing to the youth contract, as is the advance in apprenticeships—and the shadow Secretary of State’s comments on apprenticeships were an absolute travesty. We know that there has been a big increase in terms of both quantity and quality, and, of course, the support given to employers so that they can take on young people has been an important and extremely positive element of the youth contract.

[Mr Steve Reed (Croydon North) (Lab)]

One of the problems is that all too often under this Government work simply does not pay enough. Does the Secretary of State accept any responsibility for the fact that since the Government came to power, the number of working people claiming housing benefit in Croydon has increased by 1,100%?

Jobs and Business

Debate between Steve Reed and Vince Cable

Friday 10th May 2013 Commons Chamber

[Vince Cable]

There is no such activity in Britain. There were cases of people working without pay and my colleague, the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, intervened to stop that practice operating on the back of the benefits system.

We acknowledge that there is one category of people among whom unemployment is worryingly high: young people. The Leader of the Opposition focused on that issue. About 1 million young people are unemployed. That figure is worrying, but we should recall that the level of young people’s unemployment, which is approaching 20%, is virtually the same as the level we inherited.

It is also worth recalling that a third of the figure is made up of full-time students. It has always struck me as a little odd that we regard full-time students as unemployed, but that is what the statistics show. If we strip that out, there is still a significant level of youth unemployment, which is worrying.

It is useful, as I did on the wider figures, to contrast youth unemployment in this country with that in comparable countries. In France, youth unemployment is 24%, in Sweden, which perhaps should be a role model, it is 24%, in Italy it is 35% and in Spain it is 45%. The Economist, as some Members will know, has been running a series on the global problem of youth unemployment. We share that problem, but in many ways we are outperforming comparable economies.

[Mr Steve Reed (Croydon North) (Lab)]

I hope that the right hon. Gentleman understands that in seeking to justify the unacceptably high figures on youth unemployment he will sound incredibly complacent to long-term unemployed young people in constituencies such as mine, whose numbers over the past 12 months have increased by more than 100%.

[Vince Cable]

It is not complacent to acknowledge the extent to which we have serious problems, which is where I started, or to compare the country with economies that are suffering similar problems. For those who are rightly focused on unemployment among young people, the simple truth is that long-term youth unemployment rose by 40% in the boom years when the Labour party was in power. Labour Members are therefore not in a strong position to lecture us on how to deal with it.

We have focused on two policy areas to deal with the problem of youth unemployment. I am most closely involved in the growth of apprenticeships and my colleague, the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, will talk about the other. We have all embraced apprenticeships, including, rather belatedly, the Opposition. There is a recognition among employers and young people that it is an excellent model for training. Under this Government, the number of apprenticeship starts has increased by 86%. There were 160,000 last year. There has been a 42% growth in the number of young people starting apprenticeships. We are making reforms that will improve the system further, notably the employer ownership system, under which apprenticeship training will be channelled through employers so that there is the demand for real jobs. We are also introducing a staged approach through traineeships, so that young people have a route into proper training.

A difficult area is that what has kept unemployment down in the UK is the fact that real wages have not risen. Indeed, they have fallen. That was the main focus of attack from the Leader of the Opposition. We need to understand and explain what has happened. The British economy was hit massively by the financial crisis. We are a significantly poorer country than we were before that time, although we are now recovering. The impact of that has been felt predominantly through the reduction of wages in real terms.

We are trying to mitigate that impact in two major ways. The first is by lifting low earners out of tax, which increases their disposal income even though their pre-tax income may have fallen. The effect of that is that people on the minimum wage are paying half the income tax that they paid before we embarked on that reform. We have also taken 2.7 million out of income tax altogether. Secondly, and this is my direct responsibility, we have ignored the advice from some quarters to abandon the minimum wage or to dilute it. I have followed the advice of the Low Pay Commission on the minimum wage.

One of the points that the Leader of the Opposition made in his speech—

--- Later in debate ---

[Vince Cable]

Yes, I do. It is, of course, important to train people in the UK where possible, and one of the drivers behind the apprenticeship programme is that of ensuring we build up our scandalously neglected skills base. Where there are genuine vacancies, it is important that people are able to move freely. If the hon. Lady is able to bring cases to my Department, we will try to work with the Home Office to ensure that those people are able to come.

The third group of people are not immigrants at all but visitors. We wish to maintain our reputation as an economy that is open for business, and millions of people come to the UK to do business, shop, visit family and friends, or as tourists. It is important that they can do that with as few visa restrictions as possible, and where there are visa restrictions, we must ensure they are dealt with quickly and effectively. The Government are currently working hard, particularly with countries such as China, to ensure that the system works better.

Finally, there is the issue of the so-called single market within the EU. When the single market was introduced, it was made clear that one core element is the so-called four freedoms: the freedom of trade in goods; the freedom of trade in services; the freedom of capital movements; and the freedom of worker movements. They are at the heart of free trade. I am often baffled by people outside the Chamber who clamour for free trade with Europe but denounce the free market, because they are the same thing.

Modern trade relationships—there are very few restrictions on physical trade in goods these days—frequently involve people moving backwards and forwards. That is the nature of modern trading relationships, and we must uphold it within the EU.

[Mr Steve Reed]

Does the Secretary of State recognise that many immigrants are extremely entrepreneurial? One reason the London borough of Lambeth has the highest number of new business start-ups of any borough in the country is the relatively high immigration there.

[Vince Cable]

That is essentially the point I am trying to make. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman can communicate his message to the shadow Home Secretary, who has a slightly different take on those things.

My essential point is that there are positives, and we need to stress them in the current atmosphere. However, we also need to provide reassurance, which is what the Government are seeking to do in two main ways. First, when people come to this country, we should acknowledge a distinction between the rights to work and to claim benefits, which is at the heart of people’s sense of citizenship and belonging. My colleague the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions will explain how we want to ensure that British citizens and not people from overseas receive benefits. The sense of abuse in that sector fuels much of the current anxiety.

The second source of concern is the belief that the laws and restrictions we have should be enforced. There are measures in the Immigration Bill to try to ensure that the private sector, particularly the property sector, plays its role in enforcing them. Those restrictions will have to be subject to a proper regulatory impact assessment and, under the one in, two out principle, they will have to demonstrate that they do not impose red tape on small business. Provided that happens, I hope the combination of actions that have been taken in respect of the benefits system and enforcing the law will be sufficient to reassure the public, or those people who are willing to be reassured, that managed immigration is very much in the national interest.

[Vince Cable]

The hon. Gentleman is right that myth-busting is an important part of what we need to do. However, in order to deal with myth-busting, we must also deal with genuine abuses. I hope he understands that. I am grateful for his first comment—I am trying to lower the temperature of the debate and to get us to deal with fact rather than myth. I am trying to have a proper balance that recognises the very substantial economic importance of managed migration to this country alongside the measures we must take to deal with abuse.

A large part of the Leader of the Opposition’s speech was devoted to the continuing problems in banking and the financial sector, and many of the current problems with the economy relate to the aftermath of the banking crisis. We have got to a situation in which banks—partly under pressure from regulators, and partly as a result of learning from their mistakes—have moved to a position of fairly extreme risk aversion. If we are to ensure that credit flows to small business, which is the motor of the economy, that needs to change.

There is some evidence that the situation is beginning to change. Some banks, such as Lloyds, HSBC and the trade finance market, are showing positive trends, as is Barclays. The head of Royal Bank of Scotland made it clear at the weekend that he has £20 billion-worth above his liquidity buffers and capital requirements available for small and medium-sized enterprise loans. We hope SMEs take advantage of that.

However, the position we are dealing with is genuinely difficult. In the light of banks’ previous misfortunes, they are operating what I call a pawnbroker model of banking, under which people need collateral, whether a gold watch or property, to secure a business loan. That is massively inhibiting for, for example, a creative industry that does not have such collateral, or an export company that is trying to trade on the basis of orders, or simply for a good company with a good business idea and a good business plan that is unable to get into expansionary mode because of the crippling effects of bank credit restriction.

The Government are trying to deal with the problem in a series of practical steps. We clearly need to do more, but it is worth summarising some of the steps we are taking. We have a sophisticated system of developing supply chain finance—the advanced manufacturing supply chain initiative. Work is being done with Kingfisher and others in the private sector to support trade finance outside the banking system. We have a £1 billion fund that now supports non-bank finance, which is proliferating rapidly. We have crowd-sourced funding, invoice finance and non-conventional forms of lending. The Financial Services Authority and, currently, the Financial Conduct Authority, relaxed rules on the establishment of new banks. Within the next year or so, we will hopefully have a lot more banks, based on the model of Aldermore and Handelsbanken.

Probably the most important step, and one that underpins the others, is the work we are doing with the business bank. We have £1 billion of start-up capital. The first £300 million is being marketed to support new banks and long-term patient capital, which can be raised in the City, and to support equity through angel networks. A crucial test of our policy in the coming months will be the speed with which we can get that capital into the market to relieve the genuine constraints.

I listened carefully to try to establish what, if anything, Opposition Members wanted to add to the debate, because the problem is a genuinely difficult one, and because Labour presided over the banking collapse. If I understand them correctly, the big new idea is regional banking. It is a good idea, and I want it to be explained and developed. It has been forgotten that, 15 years ago, we had regional banking—they were called building societies. I have a vivid recollection of that period because I was chairman of Save Our Building Societies, working with one or two Opposition colleagues, particularly the hon. Member for Edmonton (Mr Love), to try to stop the demutualisation of building societies.

I believe demutualisation began originally with Lord Lawson, but it is worth recalling that, in the first five years of the Blair Government, we lost most of our regional banks. It is worth itemising what happened to them: Bradford and Bingley collapsed and was nationalised, and is now part of Santander; Birmingham Midshires bank is now part of Lloyds; Northern Rock in Newcastle collapsed and is now part of the Virgin group; Woolwich is now part of Barclays; Halifax is now part of Lloyds; and Alliance and Leicester is now part of Santander. We had regional banking, and it went. I would love to see it recreated, but that is like turning omelettes back into eggs. I am all ears as to how that can be done. If it can be done, I am very much in favour of it, because we need much more diversity and competition in banking.

[Mr Steve Reed]

I thank the Secretary of State for being so generous with his time. He talks about the banking sector as though it is wholly independent when, in fact, large swathes of it are nationalised. Why does he not use the power that that gives him to compel banks to lend more to small businesses that are seeking finance to grow?

[Vince Cable]

There is one major bank that has predominant Government ownership. That does not give the Government powers to lend, because there are significant independent shareholders and the hon. Gentleman will be familiar with the corporate governance problems that presents. We would like RBS to lend more, and Mr Hester explained this weekend that he has a significant amount of capital available.