Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Chris Grayling and Chris Ruane(11 years, 3 months ago)
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Chris Grayling
On behalf of the whole House, I congratulate all of those who have been involved. It is an historic occasion and an extraordinary piece of history. I hope everyone will come together for a proper service to mark the occasion, and for a formal internment in the cathedral.
Back to Work Agenda
Debate between Chris Grayling and Chris Ruane(13 years ago)
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The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Chris Grayling)
For at least the last five minutes of the hon. Gentleman’s contribution, that was a really disappointing speech. He spent 10 minutes setting out very eloquently the benefits of localism in Rhyl and the work that has been done by the local community to help young people and people of all ages into work. I listened with care, and he was actually making a good argument for the approach that we are taking in the Work programme. In a moment, I will set out how we hope that the Work programme will address some of the challenges faced by towns such as his.
I am well aware of the excellent work that has been done on the ground in Rhyl. It is a good example of how a partnership between providers, local authorities, local business and other organisations to help people into employment can be fruitful. He referred to Working Links, and he will be aware that it is one of the preferred bidders for the Work programme across Wales. It has certainly built experience in Rhyl that can be used in the rest of Wales. However, that was where it stopped, and for the last five minutes of the hon. Gentleman’s speech, one would have believed that we were back to the rhetoric of the 1980s and the Morning Star. We heard a rather outdated view of class war and an apparent belief that Conservative Members and the Government have no interest in helping employment. He could not be more wrong. He needs to understand, first and foremost, the legacy that we inherited.
One would have believed from listening to the hon. Gentleman that the past 15 years were a period of great employment success, but nothing could be further from the truth. We have gone through a long period in which we have consistently had almost 5 million people on out-of-work benefits. Although there have been increases in employment, such as the growth by almost 4 million in the past few years, we know thanks to the assiduous work of the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr Field), who spent a lot of time in the previous Parliament teasing out of the previous Government the reality of the labour market, that far too many of those jobs—indeed, the majority—went not to unemployed people in this country but to people coming to the UK from overseas. That was a great tragedy and a great failure. Billions of pounds were spent on nationally organised back to work schemes that did not deliver the change that we needed.
The hon. Gentleman made a good point when he said that he did not want to see the man or woman coming from Whitehall with a big stick to try to get people into work. I agree with him, but that was the failing of the previous Government’s policy. Programmes were designed in Whitehall, to a template designed in Whitehall and on a contractual basis designed in Whitehall, and they did not deliver the improvement that we needed. That is why we are determined to change things and have brought an entirely fresh approach to back to work programmes. I believe that that approach will help and harness the expertise that has been built up in his town of Rhyl over the months and years.
Let me explain to the hon. Gentleman how the Work programme is designed to work. He will be aware that the contracting of the programme has involved not only individual prime contractors such as Working Links but a network of private small businesses, voluntary organisations, local charities, local groups with expertise on the ground in dealing with unemployment challenges and local public sector bodies. A number of local colleges are also involved in delivering the Work programme. We have decided to say to those providers that it is not the Government who know best how to get people into work, and who are best placed to design the programmes that will work in various parts of the country, it is the professionals on the ground.
We have said that we will leave it to the providers to design what works. We want to encourage them to form excellent local partnerships such as the hon. Gentleman describes as having worked well in Rhyl. The only thing that we ask of them is that they succeed. We have put in place a payment-by-results regime, in which the prime contractors are investing £580 million over the next 12 months. We have confidence in their ability to build consortia of organisations and local partnerships, and in their capability to transform the lives of unemployed individuals around the country. We will reward them when they succeed in getting the unemployed into work. The scheme is designed to deliver the type of localism that he described in Rhyl. We believe that localism can work well around the country, and it is the essence of the Work programme and the black box approach.
Chris Grayling
No, the tragedy is that the Labour Government did not do that for 10 years. There were one or two isolated pockets where there were very good local partnerships, and the hon. Gentleman has described one in Rhyl which was clearly very good, but in too many places that did not happen. Individual communities did not have the type of support that he described. They had top-down programmes designed in Whitehall. The man or woman from Whitehall with the big stick did indeed go down and tell people how things should be done.
I remember that when I held the work and pensions brief in opposition, I used to receive regular e-mails and letters from people who had been referred to the employment programmes that the previous Government had put in place and were hugely frustrated. They were being referred for a 13-week period, more often than not to sit in a classroom for the entire time, with a few lessons on how to fill in a CV and do interviews and the occasional work placement. However, they absolutely did not get the type of diverse programme that the hon. Gentleman described.
I am all in favour of some of the initiatives that the hon. Gentleman mentioned, although I do not know the details of every one. He described young people setting up their own market stalls and unemployed young people rebuilding community centres to gain the skills that they need. I applaud such valuable initiatives.
One thing that excites me when I look at the ideas of Work programme bidders is that we have challenged them to move beyond where they were before. We set a minimum performance standard in excess of what previous national programmes had achieved, precisely because we wanted to drive innovation, new ideas and much more tailored provision. I do not want one-size-fits-all provisions, because, as the hon. Gentleman knows, they do not work. A wide variety of individuals have been on benefits for the long term. He referred to young people who grew up in households in which their parents and grandparents did not work, and who had no experience of a working environment as they grew up. We must help those people back into an understanding of what they can achieve in the workplace. Some older people find that the profession that they spent 20 or 30 years in is no longer available to them. We need to help them to find something different to do with the remainder of their working years.
The Government have actively sought new ideas and a new approach. The exciting thing about the Work programme bids is that there have been real signs of innovation that move beyond that 13 weeks in the classroom and the structure of past programmes.
Youth Unemployment
Debate between Chris Grayling and Chris Ruane(13 years, 3 months ago)
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Chris Ruane (Vale of Clwyd) (Lab)
Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, for calling me so early in the debate.
In 2002, the unemployment statistics for my county of Denbighshire showed that out of its 34 wards, 50% of the unemployment was in two wards alone—Rhyl West and Rhyl South West. Rhyl South West contained the council estate where I grew up and lived for 26 years. Many of those unemployed people were related to me. Over the past nine years, it has been a personal crusade of mine to do something about that. In 2002, I established an unemployment working group, with people from the college, the Department for Work and Pensions, Jobcentre Plus, the police, economic regeneration bodies and the Welsh Assembly Government getting together around the table to create jobs for people, including young people, in my constituency.
In 2007, the DWP agreed that Rhyl could be one of 15 city strategy pilots for the whole of the UK. Although it is not a city but a town of only 27,000 people, Rhyl was included mainly as a pilot scheme for 52 seaside towns in the UK. Since then, we have made great strides in putting young people back to work in my constituency. The leader of the people who have administered the future jobs fund for the Rhyl city strategy is Ali Thomas, a dedicated professional in getting young people back to work. This is what she said about the Government’s decision to abolish the future jobs fund:
“The subsidy enabled employers to consider taking on long term unemployed people, many with multiple problems. They were able to do this because of the subsidy. The employers were taking a risk with these young people but the subsidy made the risk worthwhile.”
She went on to say:
“It wasn’t a one way street. Employers gained well motivated young workers. Nearly 60% of those that completed the placement scheme went on to gain long term employment with the employer.”
Apart from those 60%, a further 10% to 20% went on into full-time education at the fantastic Rhyl college, built by the Labour Government—the first college we have ever had, and a £10 million investment. A 70% to 80% placement rate in full-time education or full-time employment is not bad by anyone’s standards.
I ask the Minister, who is chatting away down there, what targets he is setting for his new Work scheme: 50%, 60%, 70% or 80%? I hope that he will intervene and tell me. He did not know the figures on the number of apprenticeships or internships but can he tell me his target for full-time employment placements of young people on the schemes that he is going to put in place?
Chris Grayling
The Deputy Speaker does not want extended interventions, so I simply refer the hon. Gentleman to the invitation to tender for the Work programme, which will give him some of the details he wants.
Chris Ruane
The Minister does not know.
From my perspective as a constituency MP, and from that of young people affected in my constituency, the decision to end the future jobs fund is nothing short of political spite. The Work and Pensions Committee report said that the DWP
“should conduct a comprehensive evaluation of the effectiveness of the Future Jobs Fund and publish the results.”
This obviously should have been done before the closure of the FJF. That is common sense, but it was not done.