Welfare

Alison Griffiths Excerpts

Wednesday 11th November 2026 Commons Chamber

[Alison Griffiths (Bognor Regis and Littlehampton) (Con)]

Will the Minister give way?

[Sir Stephen Timms]

I will make a little more headway and then will gladly give way to the hon. Lady.

We are increasing, for example, the number of youth apprenticeships to reverse the 40% decline in starts in a decade that kicked away a vital first step in the career ladder for many. I can remember, as I think will others, Tory Ministers year after year announcing apprenticeship targets that never got anywhere near being achieved. On more work experience places, the right hon. Gentleman may have heard the recent announcement from the British Retail Consortium. Employers want to give young people a chance to break the “no experience, no job” cycle. There is a £3,000 hiring incentive to help employers who take a chance on young people, on top of the existing employer national insurance contributions relief.

I will give way to the hon. Lady and then I will need to make some headway.

[Alison Griffiths]

I thank the Minister for giving way. He will know that employers across all our constituencies, and particularly those in hospitality, who are typically among the most prolific employers of youngsters, are telling all of us on both sides of the House that the Government’s jobs tax, the Employment Rights Act 2025 and the increase in the national minimum wage for youngsters is pricing them out of the market. Will he reconsider?

[Sir Stephen Timms]

I have told the hon. Lady about the announcement that the British Retail Consortium has made. Hospitality employers also want young people to have opportunities in their businesses, and I think we will be hearing more about that before too long.

We have youth hubs being set up in every community to offer wraparound health, housing and employment support. I visited mine in Newham last week, hosted by West Ham United Community Foundation at the Foundry in Beckton. It was full of activity and optimism for the young people who were there. For long-term unemployed young people, there is a guaranteed job fully subsidised by the Government for six months, which from next April we will fast-track for young disabled people after just three months.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Stephen Timms]

Yes, I will. My hon. Friend will know that we have a joint Minister between the Department for Education and the Department for Work and Pensions to help us to make progress in exactly the way he describes.

It was disappointing to hear the shadow Secretary of State and other Opposition Members dismiss the support that we are providing. She would hear quite different views if she spoke to the young people hired under our jobs guarantee. Getting their first experience of a real paid job is a life-changing boost for a young person. It means an enormous amount to them and it is the crucial first break that they need, which we are determined they should have. They were not getting that under the previous Government. The truth is that people do want to work. Conservatives sometimes talk about strivers versus shirkers, and people making a mockery of the system—there was something of that in the hon. Lady’s remarks earlier. Deriding the efforts of people who may well be up against tough odds but who want to make a go of things is not the right way forward. This Government will stand alongside those people.

[Alison Griffiths]

Will the Minister give way?

[Sir Stephen Timms]

No, I am going to make some progress.

Anyone can find themselves in need of support at different times in their life. It will not be divisive rhetoric or public shaming that helps them to get on to the right track to make their contribution; it will be giving them a chance. That is what we are determined to do.

We have made a very important start not just with the changes to universal credit, the Right to Try scheme and the youth guarantee, but with more investment in employment support for long-term unemployed disabled people through Pathways to Work. We have 1,000 Pathways to Work advisers reaching out to people who the Tories just gave up on. They wrote them off as too sick to work and did nothing at all to help them. We know that many of those people want to work and they know they can if they have the right support. That is what we are providing for them.

We are encouraged by the early results coming out of our Connect to Work programme, providing tailored support for disabled people and others faced with complex barriers to work. The commissioning of that programme has been devolved to local government across England and Wales, because we know that councils are best placed to know in their local area who can provide the support that is needed, bringing together employment support, education, colleges, skills providers and the NHS to deliver the help that people need. We are publishing the results for each area every quarter, so that everybody can see how things are going and extra help can be provided in places where it is needed.

Sir Charlie Mayfield’s “Keep Britain Working” review has been looking at what more employers can do to make workplaces more welcoming to jobseekers with health impairments, and more accommodating to people who experience a health problem in the course of their employment. There is a great deal of employer enthusiasm for this, because employers recognise the benefits they can get from retaining their employees, with their skills and experience, and ensuring that they are supported to thrive in work.

[Alison Griffiths]

I thank the Minister for being so generous with his time. I would like to share the feedback I received from a business group in my constituency just before the Budget. What they tell me is that they would love to be enthusiastic about hiring and bringing on more young people, but they are feeling absolutely shackled by the taxes and regulations that are being imposed on them, layer upon layer.

[Sir Stephen Timms]

The British Retail Consortium recently announced a programme of 100,000 work experience opportunities and jobs for young people. There is a lot of employer enthusiasm here. Sir Charlie Mayfield, who I was talking about, started working up his ideas with 60 vanguard employers, after publishing his report a year ago. The vanguard group is now up to 230. With regional leadership across the UK, Keep Britain Working is working with another 400 employers, mostly small and medium-sized enterprises, to test and develop better approaches to managing health and disability in the workplace. We are looking at the reform of Disability Confident and we are recruiting an extra 480 staff to turn around Access to Work applications more quickly.

[Alison Griffiths]

rose—

[Sir Stephen Timms]

No, I am not giving way again.

Like the right hon. Member for The Wrekin (Mark Pritchard), I am looking forward to Alan Milburn’s report. His interim report on young people and work was a powerful rallying cry for change and a powerful indictment of the system left behind by the previous Tory Government. The steering group working on PIP, which I co-chair, will also be coming forward with our recommendations later this month. The final reports of both reviews will be published in the next couple of months. The Government will then consider the recommendations and bring forward a White Paper in the new year.

The social security system should always provide security for those who cannot work, but for those who can work the system needs to be a bridge to provide a way into greater participation. That means going beyond the approach we inherited that provides an assessment, writes a cheque and after that says goodbye, with no offer of skills or training and no opportunity to get a job. We do not just owe young people an income; we owe them a future. Young people were starting to doubt whether they had a future. We need to show them that a way is being opened up, as it is. It means ending the Tories’ “signed off, written off” culture, changing the question the system asks from, “What benefit are you entitled to?” to “How do we help you to live the fullest life, to fulfil your aspirations?”