Housing Benefit

Alison McGovern Excerpts

Tuesday 12th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Rachel Reeves]

I can think of another example from my constituency, where a gentleman has lived in his house for 30 years. He brought up his family there, but the estate he lives on is made up of three-bedroom properties and if he is forced to move he will be moving away from the people with whom he went to primary school and secondary school, and from his children and grandchildren. How can that be fair and right, and how will it help foster the big society that we used to hear so much about?

[Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)]

I pay tribute to the contribution my hon. Friend is making. Before she moves on from talking about personal cases, I think we should pay tribute to all those people who came and told us their personal stories. That is a hard thing for some people to do. They are the people who have really fought this campaign and we support them in this House today. Does my hon. Friend agree that we must pay tribute to the bravery and courage of people such as my constituent, Ms Davis from Bebington, who came forward and told their story?

[Rachel Reeves]

I thank my hon. Friend for that contribution. Surgeries can be difficult when we discuss these issues with constituents and they break down in tears. It is people who have done the right thing, gone out to work and tried to support their families, but who have fallen on difficult times, done nothing wrong and whose children have left home or gone to university who will be saddled with this tax. I pay tribute to them for sharing their stories and to those who came to London this morning to tell us their heart-breaking stories.

Jobseekers (Back to Work Schemes) Bill

Alison McGovern Excerpts

Tuesday 19th March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that what this tells us is that we need root and branch reform of how DWP communicates with the public? It is bitter when constituents of mine go to the jobcentre or take part in the Work programme already feeling bad and communication by DWP makes them feel so much worse. That has got to come to an end.

[Mr Brown]

I agree with my hon. Friend. I also want to come back to the point I made at the beginning. Staff are under so much pressure. I can tell both Ministers here that there will for ever be a question mark over targets. Let me assure them and the Secretary of State that if evidence ever comes my way that clearly indicates that there are targets that have been denied by Ministers, I will make the House fully aware. I hope that hon. Members on both sides would do likewise. If that evidence is to be found, if that is happening, then it is only right that we expose it.

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[Dr Whiteford]

It is very disappointing, but what disappoints me even more is that I suspect that we will be very lonely in the No Lobby tonight when we vote on this question. I urge everyone present who cares about this issue not to sit on their hands this evening but to stand up for people who are being asked to undertake unpaid work when they could be working for a wage in a proper job.

The worst aspect of the youth training scheme was that people were paid off from proper jobs in order to make way for YTS trainees on 20-something quid a week. Even in the 1980s, that was a derisory amount of money. It perpetuated dependency, sucked real jobs out of the economy and created huge resentment, not just among trainees who felt that they were being exploited, but from those who had watched their own wages and job opportunities evaporate.

The reality, then and now, was that people started getting jobs in significant numbers when, and only when, the economy started picking up again. Castigating the unemployed for being out of work entirely misses the point, and simply passes the buck away from those of us who have more responsibility for the state of the economy. The point about the state of the economy is as relevant today as it was in the 1980s, and it is particularly relevant with regard to the availability of work for people who do not have much work experience, or who face hurdles because of their health, because they lack skills or because they face other barriers to employment.

For several years now, I have taken an active interest in the programmes run by the Prince’s Trust in my constituency, which help young people who are some distance from the labour market to build the skills, the experience and, above all, the confidence and self-belief to find work and derive the many benefits that come with it. A work experience placement is an integral aspect of the Prince’s Trust programme, but as the economic recession has dragged on, it has become harder for staff to find placements, and significantly harder for the young people taking part to secure employment subsequently.

[Alison McGovern]

Does the hon. Lady agree that one of the most awful aspects of the Work programme is the way in which some of the really brilliant and committed charitable organisations have been locked out of taking part in it?

[Dr Whiteford]

I could not agree more. The schemes that are run by experienced voluntary organisations are often the most successful in overcoming the real attitudinal, confidence and self-esteem issues that many young people have when they are finding it difficult to get a job and to find the dignity that comes from work, and when they feel that society is telling them that they do not have a contribution to make.

Almost all the young people in the first Prince’s Trust team I met had secured a job by the end of their programme: either their placement had led to a job offer or they used their experience to get a similar job elsewhere, or they had gone to a positive destination in college or a training programme. Recent teams of young people have struggled; they did well in their placements, but there is not sufficient demand in the economy to generate the entry-level jobs they were working towards. When I say that about Aberdeenshire, one of the most economically buoyant parts of the UK, I am left pondering how much harder it must be in areas of high and persistent unemployment in other parts of these islands.

The only workable solution is to drive growth and create demand in the economy. That is the way to create jobs and get people into work, but it is something that the Government have conspicuously failed to do over the last three years and is one of the reasons why we need the power to make economic and policy decisions in Scotland. When the Government brought in their workfare scheme, they made mistakes. They should acknowledge their mistakes and take this chance to rethink the entire scheme, refocusing their efforts on creating real jobs for those who can work. Above all, the Government should step back from legislating retrospectively to penalise those they unlawfully sanctioned. That was a completely unacceptable move and my colleagues and I will oppose it.

Oral Answers to Questions

Alison McGovern Excerpts

Monday 11th March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hoban]

According to the ILO measure, 974,000 young people are unemployed, about 300,000 of whom are full-time students. Over the past few months there has been an increase of 66,000 in the number of young people in work.

[Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)]

The Minister mentioned the so-called 1 million new jobs. With reference to the labour force survey, will he tell me how many of those so-called new jobs arise from reclassification and how many represent people who are under-employed?

[Mr Hoban]

If the hon. Lady looks at the labour force survey, she will see that the figure is 1 million net new jobs. She talks about people being under-employed. I hope that she is not being condescending to those of her constituents and mine who are working part-time and want to work part-time.

Oral Answers to Questions

Alison McGovern Excerpts

Thursday 22nd November 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Vaizey]

We are certainly encouraging that, and a number of counties are working together, including Devon and Somerset, and Herefordshire and Gloucestershire. We will continue to encourage that where it is appropriate.

[Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)]

11. What assessment she has made of the cultural sector in Merseyside.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport (Mr Edward Vaizey)]

Our most recent survey data show that last year, nearly 80% of adults in the north-west engaged with the arts and 4.9 million people visited DCMS-sponsored museums. Between 2010 and 2015, the Arts Council will invest £44 million in Merseyside organisations and £140 million across the north-west. National Museums Liverpool will receive £109 million in grant in aid.

[Alison McGovern]

I never get tired of hearing how successful the cultural sector is in Merseyside, so I thank the Minister for his answer. However, he knows as well as I do that National Museums is not the same as the support that local authorities formerly gave, and that before the disastrous cuts that they now face, leaders in Merseyside had been able to support the arts, so why will he not answer the question from my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman)? Why will he not say to us today that he will undertake a survey of local authority cuts and place that information about the arts in the House of Commons Library?

[Mr Vaizey]

The reason the hon. Lady does not get tired of hearing about the success of Merseyside’s arts organisations is that they are astonishingly successful. Liverpool had an incredible year as the European city of culture, its central library is being refurbished, it opened the first national museum for a century, the Liverpool Everyman is benefiting from a £28 million refurbishment, and only recently the Royal Court received a grant of £867,000 for its refurbishment.

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The Minister for Women and Equalities was asked—

[Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)]

1. What assessment she has made of the differential effect of unemployment across age groups.

[Tom Blenkinsop (Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland) (Lab)]

3. What assessment she has made of the differential effect of unemployment across age groups.

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[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Esther McVey)]

Over the past year, unemployment has fallen in every age group and the number of people in work has risen by more than half a million.

[Alison McGovern]

The Minister’s answer concerns me slightly because in my constituency surgery I have heard from women in the 50-to-64 age group who are finding the labour market very tough. I believe that we have seen a recent increase in unemployment of more than 20% in that age group. What will the Minister do to help older women get back to work?

[Esther McVey]

The hon. Lady represents the constituency next to mine and we should both celebrate the fact that employment figures are up for every age group, locally, nationally and regionally. The unemployment rate for people over 50 is 4.5%, and for women over 50 it is 3.5%. Those figures are lower than the total unemployment rate of 7.8%. I would question your facts.

Oral Answers to Questions

Alison McGovern Excerpts

Monday 5th November 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hoban]

My hon. Friend is right to highlight the frustration among those who are working at seeing people who can work turn down jobs and simply get away with it. That is why we have introduced a new, tougher regime of sanctions, so that someone who turns down a job without good reason for the first time will lose their benefits for 13 weeks. That then escalates so that someone who turns down a job three times in a year will lose their benefits for three years. That is a very clear sanction, it is a very clear deterrent and it sends a very clear message that we expect people who have reasonable job offers to work and pay their own way.

[Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)]

We are talking about sanctions, carrots and sticks, and the Work programme is supposed to help people back into work. A constituent who had been on the Work programme and recently found part-time work has contacted me. He was concerned that the Work programme had been little or no help and that, although his employment was due to his own hard work, the Work programme contractor was paid anyway. What has the Minister done to prevent this deadweight loss?

[Mr Hoban]

The hon. Lady should examine some of the schemes that the previous Government introduced, under which people were paid regardless of the outcome—regardless of whether they helped people get back into work. Our Work programme pays people by results; it ensures that contractors are paid only where people get jobs, and sustainable jobs at that.

Oral Answers to Questions

Alison McGovern Excerpts

Monday 10th September 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hoban]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We are implementing that scheme in conjunction with the Greater London authority, and it will provide an important way of getting more young people into work. That will be to their benefit and to the benefit of society and taxpayers generally.

[Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)]

Further to the Minister for Work’s answer to my question on 6 December on the International Labour Organisation’s meeting at which the crisis of youth unemployment was discussed, will the Minister tell me what briefing he has received from the UK representatives, given the damage that the eurozone crisis is doing to manufacturing in my constituency and to the possibilities for young people who want to enter industry?

[Mr Hoban]

I am sure that the hon. Lady will welcome the youth contract and the work we are doing to ensure that young people come off benefit and get into work. She should also recognise that youth unemployment is lower now than it was in 2010, once we take into account policy changes. We are tackling the issues, but we do recognise the impact of the eurozone on our economy.

Oral Answers to Questions

Alison McGovern Excerpts

Monday 13th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

I should like to reassure my hon. Friend that I have made sure that there are no attempts within Jobcentre Plus and the Department for Work and Pensions to track and monitor and data-manage and performance-manage. This is a grass-roots movement. Our role is to provide a degree of local encouragement, and sometimes some initial funding to clubs to get up and running, but after that it is very much up to them to shape their destiny, and up to us to champion their success, but not to interfere.

[Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)]

The DWP’s own research on the future jobs fund published last month demonstrated the value of Government subsidy for the employment of young people during an economic crash. Does the Minister agree with his own Department’s research, and will he therefore reconsider the possibility of a work subsidy for young people if their employment levels do not improve in the coming year?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

The whole point of that research was to look at how we can get value for money—how many people we can get back to work, and what we can best do to support them. We inherited a terrible situation from the last Government, with youth unemployment having been rising for a number of years. The programmes we are introducing—such as the Work programme and special provision within that, and the innovation fund—will help them much more than lavishing huge amounts of money for very little return, such as through the future jobs fund.

State Pension Age (Women)

Alison McGovern Excerpts

Wednesday 11th May 2011 Westminster Hall

[Teresa Pearce]

I certainly do and I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention. It was not that long ago, and it was certainly after the proposal was first made, that if someone went on to the website to look at their pension forecast, it was still set at the old rates. I think that that has been changed now, thank goodness.

As I was saying, there has already been one movement forward so that people have to work longer. Now, there is another one. People are understandably angry about that and feel let down by the Government, because there was a covenant between them and the Government: “If you pay in, we’ll do this.” These people have done their part, but the other part is not coming forward.

Many people who are approaching state pension age have already taken steps to reduce their hours of employment or have taken on caring duties with elderly parents. Where their children are getting married, they have promised to look after their young grandchildren in the next few years, when their children return to the work force.

One constituent, Susan Harris, from Belvedere, was a teacher for 30 years. In 2005, she took early retirement and a reduced pension. She told me she had made calculations based on when she thought she would receive her state pension. She thought she was making an informed decision—she was planning. Sadly, she is now one of the unfortunate women facing a two-year loss in pension income. It is not surprising that she feels the Government are being unjust and have broken their promise to her about when she would receive her pension.

What assessment has the Minister’s Department made of the proposal’s effect on the number of unpaid carers and child minders in the UK? The accelerated timetable means that many people who would have taken up caring for relatives or providing child care when they retired so that the next generation could join the work force will not be able to do so, because they will be at work for another two years. The Government must consider that important social policy impact.

I would also be interested to hear the Minister’s thoughts on what the proposals will mean for volunteering and the big society. People who have retired are not inactive; they volunteer at local libraries, charity shops and lunch clubs. They also act as school governors and provide much needed care in our communities. If they are kept in the labour market for longer, they are less able to volunteer in those ways. In pushing people to work until they are much older, we are in danger of compromising activity outside the labour market, which we value very much.

It may not be easy for the women affected by the proposal to get another job or to increase their hours to fill the two-year gap, especially at such short notice. I am sure that I am not alone in receiving an increasing number of letters from constituents in their 50s who are willing to take any kind of work, but who are finding it impossible to get a job. It is not easy for people to return to the labour market once they have left, and it is becoming increasingly difficult to hang on to a job in later years, too. If women are expected to work longer, there needs to be work for them to do, and that is particularly important given the current economic situation and the rise in unemployment. In looking for work, these women may well be competing against their own grandchildren in the labour market.

Many women will not have enough savings to fall back on if they cannot hang on in the labour market. Women who have been employed in low-pay work, or who have taken time out to have children or to act as carers, will have few savings to cover them for the period between when they expected to retire and the proposed state pension date. Those women now face an uncertain future. Will the Minister outline the measures the Government plan to introduce to help them work longer? Will he comment on how women who are not in work are meant to balance their finances in the two-year gap, given that they will be eligible for jobseeker’s allowance for only six months if they have savings and will not be eligible at all if they have a small occupational pension?

I want to focus for a moment on women who have worked in low-pay or manual jobs, because class differentials need to be taken into account, as my hon. Friend the Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk (Michael Connarty) said. The Minister has defended the accelerated timetable on the basis of fairness and has said that a balance must be struck as life expectancy continues to rise, because we cannot expect the workers and companies of today to shoulder all the costs. However, while overall life expectancy has increased by 5.5% for women and 6.5% for men, it has not increased uniformly, and there are still deep socio-economic and regional differences in average life expectancy. Office for National Statistics figures show that women’s life expectancy at the age of 65 is highest in the royal borough of Kensington and Chelsea, where women can expect an additional 26 and a half years. However, in Greenwich and Bexley—the two London boroughs that cover part of my constituency—the figures are much lower, at 20 and 21 years respectively. Women’s life expectancy at 65 is even lower in Glasgow city, where women can expect just an additional 17 and a half years. The 2010 Marmot report into health inequalities found that people living in the poorest areas live seven years less on average than those living in the richest areas.

Women in poorer areas, many of whom are from working class backgrounds and have been in low-income jobs, will be hardest hit by the accelerated timetable. They are the least financially equipped to deal with the change, and their lower life expectancy means they will get less time to enjoy their retirement. There is also the issue of women manual workers, who will struggle to continue to work if their jobs are physically demanding. A constituent in Plumstead recently wrote to me, saying:

“It is particularly hard on me because I am a manual worker. I have already been ‘pacing myself’ if you like, for my retirement. I don’t think I will physically be able to continue fork lift driving and hulking boxes around at the later age. If I’d known I would’ve changed my job but it’s too late now. It’s not fair on me.”

I was hoping that my right hon. Friend the Member for Croydon North (Malcolm Wicks) would be able to make the debate, because he has done some excellent research on the impact that the accelerated timetable will have on men and women of different social classes. I hope the Minister is aware of that research and that the Government will take it into account.

Although the proposed accelerated timetable directly affects a comparatively small group of women, its impact will be felt more widely. Extended family members may have to contribute financially to help women cover the costs of the period between when they expected to get a pension and when they actually receive it. The change will also affect many men of pensionable age because they cannot claim pension credit until their wife or partner reaches pension age. The change will therefore affect the whole household.

The Government need to think carefully about what they are asking of a small group of women who have worked hard all their lives. These women are being told to pay a disproportionate cost with little notice. They have earned a decent retirement, but many fear they will be too old and frail to enjoy it. A constituent from Belvedere wrote to me recently to say:

“I have been working since I was 16, have paid all my contributions and was looking forward to enjoying my retirement. But now it looks like I will be too old to do anything except watch telly if they keep altering the age. I suppose the Government does not care about the people who vote them in.”

[Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that one of the wider consequences relates to trust in the pensions system? When daughters see their mothers being somewhat misled, and when they see the Government change their plans in this way, they lose faith in our pensions system, and we can ill afford that.

[Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)]

rose—

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[Steve Webb]

I suspect that the hon. Lady will not benefit from our proposals, as I imagine that she would have received a full basic state pension anyway, whereas the proposals will help some women who would not have received it. By being employed here, she is also contracted out of SERPS, resulting in a deduction from the £140. I do not actually think that she would benefit.

I do not dispute for a second that that set of women will be affected by the changes, but the pension that they will get under our proposals will be significantly better on average than that received, for example, by women who retired a few years earlier. We can do all sorts of comparisons between this group and that group. Some things will be better for some and some will be worse. What I am saying is that several hon. Members have said, “You used to campaign for women’s pensions, but you don’t care any more,” but I have spent all my time as a Minister working on proposals that will benefit women pensioners specifically.

[Alison McGovern]

Will the Minister answer a specific point? He made it clear that the reason why he felt compelled to introduce further changes was that what he inherited did not meet the terms of the Turner review. The Turner review advised allowing people 15 years to plan for changes, but women in our constituencies have had much less time than that—barely five years—to plan. That is not fair. Will he explain why his Government are doing that to women in our constituencies?

[Steve Webb]

The things that Turner recommended are not consistent with each other. We cannot, for example, have a consistent percentage of income during life in retirement and give 15 years’ notice at the same time, because longevity is increasing much faster than that. Something somewhere has to give.

One point that has been missing during this debate—the only time that it was mentioned was when an hon. Member quoted me from last week’s debate—is that if we delay till 2020, as the hon. Member for Leeds West (Rachel Reeves) proposed, we will have to find £10 billion. My hon. Friend the Member for Argyll and Bute (Mr Reid) raised an important point, and he is analytically correct: that does not help us in the comprehensive spending review period or help the long-term structural deficit, because the age would have been 66 anyway. However, it does do one thing: it takes £30 billion—or rather, £10 billion; the whole change amounts to £30 billion, but the difference between the two of us is £10 billion—off the national debt. As he knows, servicing the national debt is one of the most crippling things that this Government must do. That is why such difficult decisions must be made.

Our changes will take £30 billion off the national debt. I do not know what the interest rate on the national debt is, but let us say 5% for the sake of round numbers. That is just to make the numbers add up; I do not suppose for a minute that it is 5%. That is £1.5 billion extra every year to spend on services or whatever rather than on the national debt. I think that that would be the hon. Lady’s preferred solution.

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[Steve Webb]

That is not what the previous Government did. We would love to be able to say to people who are 40 or 45 years old, “This will be your pension age.” However, if we said that to 45-year-olds, who have another 20 years or more before they retire, and another 20 to 25 years of life in retirement, we would be locking in what we know about longevity now for pensions that we will still be paying in 50 years’ time. That is just not viable.

[Alison McGovern]

Will the Minister give way?

[Steve Webb]

In a moment. The pace of improvement in longevity is breathtaking. Between 2004 and 2008—the longevity projections of 2004 are, I think, what the previous Government’s legislation was based on, and those of 2008 are what we have now—life expectancy at pension age increased by well over a year in just four years. It is almost like a runaway train. We can always say, “Let’s wait another decade,” but one of the problems is that there is a trade-off, because, as I have said, what has been missing from this debate is the people who have to pay.

Delaying for 10 years, which is what I think the hon. Member for Leeds West is suggesting, does not mean a free lunch. It would mean a £10 billion national insurance hit on today’s workers and today’s firms. If she were wearing another hat, the hon. Lady would be saying, “The recovery is fragile and we need to do more for jobs and to boost the economy,” but what she is saying is that we should levy another £10 billion of national insurance on today’s workers, including low-paid women who do not have much pension, and today’s firms, which may have to lay off people who will not then be able to build up decent pensions. There will be no free lunch if we delay.

[Steve Webb]

There is a queue. I shall give way to the hon. Member for Wirral South first.

[Alison McGovern]

If, as figures last week suggested, the Government fail to meet their own target to balance the books over the course of this Parliament and we still have a deficit for which the Government have not planned in 2015-16, will we have more pensions Bills to push people’s pensions further back in order to incorporate what the Minister has said about being fair to those who are paying now?

[Steve Webb]

We have made it clear that the age-66 changes are in the present Pensions Bill, which will be legislated for long before the end of this Parliament. We are also consulting in the Green Paper on a systematic mechanism for going beyond 66 that takes account of all the factors that we have talked about. That will try to strike a balance between notice, which is important, and fairness for those who bear the cost of increased longevity. The intention—this is something that no previous Government have done—is for the further changes to do it in a more systematic way. The 60 to 65 equalisation was a response to a legal case. The previous Government’s plans for 66, 67 and 68 were not ad hoc exactly, but there was no mechanism in place to respond to subsequent improvement in longevity. What we are trying to do as part of our reforms, which we are consulting on at the moment, is give people the certainty that future Governments will not just pass a law and change things, but that there will be a structure in place and that they will know how it is going to be.

Oral Answers to Questions

Alison McGovern Excerpts

Monday 28th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I can give my hon. Friend that reassurance. He should be reassured by the fact that this Government are doing more to reform the archaic benefits system, which is full of all the traps to which he referred. That will benefit those who are in work. One big reason why they have to pay more tax is that the last Government left us with a nightmare system that prefers to keep people out of work than in work.

[Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)]

Having work experience and money reserved for apprenticeships will not automatically equal a reduction in unemployment among young people. When will the Minister report to the House on the unemployment that is faced by young people, and what will he do if the numbers do not fall?

[Chris Grayling]

The hon. Lady needs to understand that this problem has been building steadily for the past decade. It happened in good years under the previous Government. We are dealing with the appalling inheritance of 600,000 young people who left school, college or university and have never worked. We think that our programmes will start to make a difference, that they will be better value for taxpayers’ money, and that they will be more effective than the previous Government’s programmes. Above all, we think that apprenticeships give the foundation for a lifetime of skills and employment. That is why they were such a centrepiece of the Budget.

Youth Unemployment

Alison McGovern Excerpts

Wednesday 16th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Byrne]

That was not a straight answer to a simple question, which was why a DWP official confirmed the figures to the BBC yesterday and again this morning. The conclusion that the House can draw is a point that was made by the Office for Budget Responsibility—that there is not enough confidence that the Government have a plan in place to get people back to work. Indeed, the OBR has so much confidence in the Government’s plan to get people back to work that it is forecasting a declining rate of employment for the rest of this Parliament.

I do not claim that the future jobs funds was some kind of celestial design. I am sure there are aspects of it that could be improved. As my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Luciana Berger) mentioned a moment ago, it was labelled “a good scheme” by the Prime Minister on his trip to Liverpool. The evidence on which it was abolished was simply not there.

In my constituency we have the highest youth unemployment in the country. The leaders of my jobcentre on Washwood Heath road have consistently said to me that the future jobs fund was one of the best programmes they have ever administered. Overwhelmingly, they say, the young people they send on the programme do not come back and join the dole queue. In their first months the Government rushed out some hasty research on its expense. This is what the Work and Pensions Committee had to say about that scribbled bit of analysis:

“A robust evaluation of the FJF has yet to be undertaken…insufficient information was available to allow the Department to make a decision to terminate the FJF if this decision was based on its relative cost-effectiveness.”

That is an extraordinary indictment of the Government’s rationale. The report says that half of future jobs fund graduates get benefits at seven months, but that is because the programme ends at six months.

The Government dispute the claim that the scheme created real jobs. I am not sure what Jaguar Land Rover would say about that and the places that it created on the future jobs fund, but surely the point is that when people do not have a job, any job is a good job.

[Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)]

Can my right hon. Friend suggest what Age Concern Wirral in my constituency might think of the slashing of the future jobs fund—a scheme that was not only providing work for my constituents, but helping intergenerational relationships in Wirral and looking after some of the most vulnerable people with early onset Alzheimer’s?

[Mr Byrne]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. In a recession private sector jobs are thin on the ground. Anything that keeps young people closer to the labour market, closer to the habits of work and closer to the disciplines of having a job must be a good thing. The lesson from the 1980s, when youth unemployment spiralled to 26%, is that if we let young people get too far away from the habits of work, they are scarred for generations to come.

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[Chris Grayling]

I remember the right hon. Gentleman’s former boss standing in this House and promising about 400,000 apprenticeships. When Labour left office, the actual figure was 240,000, so I shall take no lessons from the Opposition about delivering promises on apprenticeships. We plan to deliver, and are already well on the way to delivering, 50,000 extra apprenticeships this year, 75,000 extra by the end of this Parliament and more apprenticeships for young people between 16 and 18 years old. Those apprenticeships will cost about half that of each future jobs fund placement, but they will deliver the skills that last a young person a lifetime, and the opportunity to progress on to a secure career path.

[Alison McGovern]

I thank the Minister for giving way, because this is a truly important point. When I have asked parliamentary questions about targets for the number of apprenticeships, the Government have told me that they no longer set such targets, so will the Minister make clear the status of the pledge that he has just made?

[Chris Grayling]

We fund a certain number of apprenticeships, and there are 50,000 extra this year. They are being filled at the moment, as we speak. We will fund 50,000 extra apprenticeships this year and 75,000 extra throughout the course of the comprehensive spending review. A few days ago BIS set out a clear goal to increase the number of apprenticeships in this country to 350,000. We have been in office for nine months; the Labour party was in office for 13 years, and it consistently under-delivered on apprenticeships throughout those 13 years.

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[Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)]

I will be very brief, because many Members on both sides of the House have contributed to the debate and have made excellent points.

Young people are always the victim of recessions; they are always the least able to cope. That is true around the world now: in both wealthy nations and developing countries, young people are the victims of the recent global economic crash. It was true in 1992 as well, which was a recession I remember only too well.

We live in a changing world. It is no longer possible to be like my dad and fail at education but succeed in the world of work. We have a different economy, where skills are necessary not just for well-paid jobs but for all jobs. That will continue in the future; our place in the global market has changed and we must recognise what that means for young people.

The existing culture of worklessness that other Members have mentioned and which my neighbour, my right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead (Mr Field), has done so much to research and question, arose from the failure in the 1980s to plan for change. Because we failed to plan then for better employment, we have an entrenched culture of worklessness. I hope that Ministers in this Government will not make the same mistake. I have certainly seen their commitment and I hope they will build on it by changing course.

To make sure that young people, especially those on Merseyside and those I represent in Wirral, do not pay the price of the crash, the Government should slow down the cuts, and invest to save. We shall not fix the deficit by forcing young people to remain on the dole. The Government must rethink their plans for work experience schemes that bear too many of the hallmarks of the short-termism of YTS in favour of real jobs in the voluntary and social sector. We can support that sector, which means so much to us, by investing in such jobs, as the future jobs fund was doing. That is the lesson the Government need to learn. It is not by pandering to hard-line calls for cuts that we shall fix the deficit, but by investing in young people for the future.