Jobs Market

Lord Kennedy of Southwark Excerpts

Thursday 5th February 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Skidelsky (CB)]

My Lords—

[Captain of the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen-at-Arms and Chief Whip (Lord Kennedy of Southwark) (Lab Co-op)]

It is the turn of the Lib Dem Benches.

[Lord Palmer of Childs Hill (LD)]

My Lords, I love the optimism from the Minister. Can he say what distortion there is on the employment figures from jobs which are not real jobs—zero-hour jobs—where people do not know whether they have a job tomorrow, next week or next month? There are so many people who now seem to be counted in the Minister’s assessment of jobs who are not fully employed. Do the Government have any actions planned to turn those negligible jobs into real jobs?

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[Lord Watts (Lab)]

My Lords—

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab Co-op)]

My Lords, we have not heard from the Labour Benches yet.

[Noble Lords]

Yes, we have.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab Co-op)]

No, I am sorry, we have not. The noble Lord, Lord Austin, is a non-affiliated Member of this House.

[Lord Watts (Lab)]

Following the previous question, which set out a strategy for dealing with youth unemployment, may I remind people that it was under the free market antics that we have just heard about that the Thatcher Government decimated my constituency and many Merseyside constituencies, and left them with record levels of unemployment?

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Harrington of Watford (Non-Afl)]

My Lords—

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab Co-op)]

There is plenty of time. It is the Conservative Benches next, then the Cross Benches.

[Lord Harrington of Watford (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I do my best in these questions not to give Ministers—particularly this Minister—a hard time. However, in my capacity as chairman of Make UK, which has 26,000 manufacturing companies, I speak to a lot of employers. They find, first, that in the last year or so, they have been faced with energy costs that are twice as much as those of their competitors in Europe, and despite the Government’s announcement nearly a year ago of a reduction in those energy costs, they have not seen anything happen. Secondly, there has been an increase in national insurance, which is a big payroll tax, and thirdly, there is the bureaucracy and other things that come out of the Employment Rights Act. Given all this, how can the Government expect employers to employ more people?