Labour Market Activity

Debate between Alison McGovern and Guy Opperman

Tuesday 28th February 2023 Commons Chamber

[Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)]

I thank all right hon. and hon. Members who have spoken in this debate, but particularly my friend the hon. Member for Glasgow South West (Chris Stephens) and my hon. Friends the Members for Worsley and Eccles South (Barbara Keeley), for Leicester West (Liz Kendall), for Swansea East (Carolyn Harris), for Newcastle upon Tyne North (Catherine McKinnell), for Ealing North (James Murray), for Denton and Reddish (Andrew Gwynne) and for Warrington North (Charlotte Nichols). I thought they all made comprehensive and excellent cases in support of a Labour Government.

[The Minister for Employment (Guy Opperman)]

I am not sure the hon. Member for Glasgow South West (Chris Stephens) did.

[Alison McGovern]

I do apologise. I had written down the hon. Member for Glasgow South West. He can, I am sure, opine on his opinions about the possibility of a Labour Government at a later date, but I had included him in my list of friends.

On the subject of a Labour Government, I have served in opposition for 12 years and nine months—just three months shy of the age of the last Labour Government —and I am not proud of having been in opposition for that long, because it has been painful to watch events in our country and know that too often voting in this House on behalf of my constituents can do little in reality to help them.

I have learned a few things, having been here for 12 years and taking part in many debates on our country’s economy. I have learned that whenever the Tories are criticised on their economic record, they rely again and again not on their own record, but on a cheat sheet handed out to them by the Whips. On employment, there is one thing in particular that they always come out with: according to them, every Labour Government have left office with unemployment higher than when they started—so they tell us, as if the food banks do not matter and as if child poverty does not matter.

Were this a unique failing of Labour Governments, it might be a serious charge, but the problem for those on the Government Benches and the thing they never tell us is that it is not; the very same accusation is also true of Tory Governments, and we have had a lot more Tory Governments about which that is true. The record of the Conservative party on unemployment is far worse than that of the Labour party. This ridiculous accusation about Labour Governments that I have heard again and again over 12 years in trying to defend the indefensible reveals a political truth about work: Governments who are not able to respond to events and who are not seen to help people do better at work do not last long.

I bet I know what it says next on the Whips handout, and we have heard it again today. It will say, “Unemployment is at a record low of 1.2 million people, or 3.7%.” Historically speaking, and taken technically, the International Labour Organisation measure of unemployment looks low, but that figure hides a multitude of sins in our economy—1.7 million of them, to be precise. That is the number who, despite our so-called low unemployment, want a job, do not have a job, but are not actively looking right now. It is classified as inactivity, but I say that if it looks like people are being given up on, it does not matter what kind of unemployment it is; it is still throwing people on the scrapheap, at the very time our country needs them most.

Those 1.7 million people include parents who cannot get childcare, women over 50, more than 50,000 of whom are looking after a loved one, and far too many people who are ill and on waiting lists and their carers, knackered out by not being able to get the support they need. I thought we heard compellingly from my hon. Friend the Member for Denton and Reddish about the impact of long covid and the Government’s failings. We also heard with absolute clarity from the hon. Member for Leicester West about how this issue is not just damaging our economy, but is a feminist case for change.

We have altogether nearly 3 million people out of work, and all those people will be right to wonder if the Tories, as usual, have given up on them, because the theme of Conservative Governments over the past 12 years since 2010 is of slowly giving up—giving up on building the living standards they promised and building opportunities across the whole country; giving up on increasing productivity as they promised; giving up on older people, ill people and disabled people; and, giving up on building back better and levelling up. All their empty words never had substance. More importantly, they never had belief in the British people, while demanding that the British people believed in them.

In 2015, the Conservative manifesto promised to deliver the highest employment rate in the G7, but mysteriously that commitment disappeared from future manifestos. In 2017, the Conservative manifesto pledged to get 1 million more people with disabilities into employment over the next 10 years. The 2019 manifesto removed that target and replaced it with something vague, and something vague is all that people with disabilities have had. There are three-word slogans all the time, yet all we get is very little help.

The truth is that, whatever recent changes to our economy have been caused by the pandemic, we have deep flaws in this country that have been created by previous generations of Tories and made worse by the current crop. On skills, because of long-standing low ambition, we have 5 million people lacking basic skills, but now, to make matters worse, nearly one in five people are working below their skill level, including 27% of people in London. In our nation’s capital—our so-called success story—27% of people are working below their skill level. What a waste of time, what a waste of talent, and what a waste of our country’s potential.

On care, childcare is unaffordable and unavailable, and social care is in chaos, leading to the dreadful situation—as I have said, my hon. Friend the Member for Leicester West made this case—of women’s economic progress going backwards.

On disabilities, never mind creating the inclusive workplace that we need, the Government cannot even get the basics right. Crucially, everyone can see that some places in our country are still suffering from dreadful unemployment—actual ILO statistical unemployment —despite the UK picture. From Blackpool to Peterborough, the Tories are ignoring the very places they claimed they would level up.

But who cares if some places fall further behind and who cares if people are too sick to work, as long as the headline numbers look okay, eh? Money has been thrown at kickstart and restart, but we have seen no real progress and no real learning—just a waste of time, money and effort. Does anyone believe that if there was real commitment from the Government there would now be the ability to deliver after 12 years of failure? I do not even think there is such commitment any more; nor even the pretence of it. We have wasted time and talent, and broken communities everywhere, because the Tories have given up now. They have given up on people, as we have seen from their failed schemes. They have given up on places, as we have seen from the towns and cities that have fallen further behind. They have given up on skills and growth, and given up on government. It is a triumph of not caring.

I tell you one thing, Madam Deputy Speaker, if 12 years in opposition has taught me anything, it has taught me never to give up, and that is why we will not. We will not give up on our towns and cities. We will not give up on the fact that our country needs proper care, childcare and social care, and we will not give up on disabled people. Harold Wilson said that unemployment above all else made him political. Anyone who grew up in Merseyside before the advent of the last Labour Government knows exactly what he meant, and this is personal to me. We will not stand by any longer and see low ambition and the tick-box culture of the Tory DWP run people down. We are bigger and better than that as a nation. If the Government think that a few attack lines from the Tory Whips Office will keep them going until the general election, I say, “Bring it on!”