House of Commons Hansard Debates for 26 Jun 1995

Mr. Ian McCartney (Makerfield): Amendment (a) is one of a range of amendments to clause 6 to which I shall allude. Hopefully, some of my hon. Friends will also be allowed to speak to amendment (a). Within three hours of my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition tabling amendment (a), the Prime Minister had resigned. Within 24 hours, the Foreign Secretary had announced his intention to retire, and the Secretary of State for Wales resigned today. There is no truth in the rumour that the Chief Secretary to the Treasury provided a smoking gun free of charge.

In what will become the Redwood amendment, we should like to know where the Minister stands. Planet Vulcan is in the ascendancy, eclipsing planet Portillo, and both are on collision course for planet--

Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. I am having some difficulty in relating what the hon. Gentleman is saying to the matters which are under consideration, or which ought to be under consideration.

Mr. McCartney: I am trying to get the Minister in a relaxed mood.

Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. The Chair is not interested in relaxing anybody. Please get to the main point.

Mr. McCartney: After the jokes that we heard about the jacuzzi, I thought that I was speaking in the spirit of the House. However, I do not wish to incur your wrath, Madam Deputy Speaker, as I do occasionally.

The amendment is about insecurity at work. Are the new clauses a Government apology? On Second Reading and in Committee, my hon. Friends and I made it clear that clause 6 was not only badly worded and draconian in its dealings with the unemployed, but was so wide ranging that its implementation could mean anything. Our amendments, many of which we moved in Committee, tried to elicit what was in the Government's mind, and also sought to improve the clause. We tried to ensure that, when it arrived in the other place, the principle of the Government's intention to attack the unemployed instead of unemloyment was understood.

The clause was unamended when it went to the other place. Labour, Liberal Democrat and Conservative Members of the other place, and Cross Benchers, decided that the Government were wrong about clause 6. Therefore, the Minister owes the House and the other place an apology for the Government's arrogance in failing to recognise the weight of evidence about the way that they proceeded on the issue. At the heart of the matter is the Government's drive to open up the labour market and create even further work insecurity for many people. The amendment is designed to

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protect people who, through no fault of their own, become unemployed for short or long periods. As a result of the legislation and the interpretation placed on clause 6 by officers of the Government, those people will have no income early in their unemployment.

The Government have used temporary employment and other measures as arms of economic activity. Over the two years between autumn 1992 and autumn 1994, the net rise in jobs was entirely in non-permanent employment. Temporary employment grew by nearly 260,000 jobs, but total employment grew by fewer than 160,000. That means that permanent employment continued to fall.

In December 1994, the Department of Employment admitted to me that 587,000 people were in temporary jobs because they could not find permanent work. Some 43 per cent. of all temporary workers wish to have permanent employment. Temporary work, which is increasingly dominated by fixed-term contracts that allow employers to avoid employment rights--notably on dismissal and redundancy pay--is rife. Temporary workers are excluded from long-term benefits such as occupational pension schemes and training.

The number of people working part-time because they cannot find full-time work has increased by more than 60 per cent. in the past 10 years. There are now 850,000 involuntary part-timers in the British economy, representing about 14 per cent. of the total work force.

Miss Widdecombe: That is a very misleading figure. The percentage of those who are in part-time work but who would prefer to have full-time jobs has been steady over the past 10 years, at between 13 and 14 per cent. There has been no change in the proportion, and the increase of which the hon. Gentleman speaks is due purely to the increase in part-time workers and the growth of the work force as a whole. The hon. Gentleman is not being entirely fair.

4.45 pm

Mr. McCartney: The hon. Lady has got it wrong again. During this recession, 1.7 million full-time jobs were lost. People no longer have a choice in the labour market. All they are offered is part-time or temporary work or nothing, and the Bill will deliver even more people into that scenario. Their simple choice will be a loss of benefit or a loss of career, status or income if they do not accept part-time temporary employment.

That is a key factor in the Government's economic policy. The Minister does not like us saying that, because the Government have been rumbled by the public. That is why there is no feel-good factor in the economy. How could one feel good trying to pay rent or a mortgage or trying to develop a career in part-time employment? It cannot be done, and the Minister knows it.

Instead of trying to reduce inequality and insecurity in the labour force, the Minister has introduced a Bill to cut benefits by £400 million a year. She will take about 90,000 off the register altogether, and another 150,000 people will have their benefits reduced by between 20 and 70 per cent. The measures are supposed to develop and improve people's employment opportunities, but that is nonsense. That has been recognised, and it is why many of the Government's social and economic policies are a shambles. The Minister cannot glibly get away from that.

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According to a labour force survey, in the winter of 1994-95, there were, believe it or not, 26,000 unemployed teachers and lecturers, and 14,000 unemployed nurses and midwives. There is a crisis in education and in the health service, but tens of thousands of doctors, nurses, midwives and teachers are on the dole. What does the Bill propose to do about those people? The Minister suggests that they should be denied benefit if, for example, they refuse to take jobs in burger bars. They may be offered other low-paid jobs, which would mean that they would have to work long hours to make ends meet. In her perorations in Committee, the Minister did not outline her intentions. However, she said that the clause would be widely interpreted. People want to maintain the level of skills they had in their former employment, but the clause will undermine that possibility. After 13 weeks of unemployment benefit, such people will be forced into low-paid work or removed from the register, thereby being denied the right to income.

Miss Widdecombe: What new provisions against which the hon. Gentleman rants so wildly are being introduced? At the moment, it is not permissible for somebody to turn down a job merely on the basis of its nature or the level of pay. What is new? What is in the Bill that is not already in the system and has been working well for a long time?

Mr. McCartney: When the hon. Lady does not like what someone is saying, she describes it as a rant. She is getting boring. When someone shows a bit of passion because of an interest in people who are in difficult circumstances, the hon. Lady describes it as a rant.

Miss Widdecombe: The hon. Gentleman should answer the question.

Mr. McCartney: I will answer the question, but I am surprised that I have to answer it, after all the months that we have spent on this legislation. The Government propose to reduce the period during which unemployment benefit is paid, from 12 months to six months. Instead of having 12 months to get back into their career structure, people will have only six months.

In addition, however, the hon. Lady knows that, after 13 weeks, individuals will be asked whether they will accept another form of employment, and they will be offered part-time, temporary employment. If they do not accept it, after 13 weeks--not after 26 weeks--they will lose their right to benefit. That is the truth of the matter, and that is what the Bill is about.

The hon. Lady should be honest about it. That is what she is proposing, both in relation to its principle, and in terms of what she said in Committee. Clause 6 is about implementing that principle of undermining people's rights to benefit where they seek appropriate work in a labour market.

Miss Widdecombe: Does the hon. Gentleman accept that, under the present rules, even if a person is on contributory benefit--and has been on it for 12 months--and if, in the course of that time, he is offered a job, he is not allowed to turn it down merely on the basis of pay levels and nature of work? What will change?

Mr. McCartney: The hon. Lady is wriggling and wriggling and wriggling, but she cannot get away from the concept and principle of the Bill, by which she has

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reduced people's entitlement to unemployment benefit from 12 to six months, while at the same time increasing national insurance contributions. It is a matter, therefore, not only of paying more, but of getting less and being blamed for unemployment caused by the Government's crass economic policies.

I shall give hon. Lady another figure that she might not like and that I should like her to explain. Why is it that, leading up to the introduction of the Bill, benefit disqualifications have increased by a devastating 81 per cent? In 1991-92, referrals for benefit disqualification totalled 142,300, and disqualifications totalled 68, 800--a disqualification rate of 48 per cent. However, in the run-up to this legislation, with the Government already putting in place, with the Benefits Agency and others, as part of their massaging of the unemployment figures, targets for the reduction of people who could have the right to benefit, the referral rate has increased dramatically, to 200,400.

Disqualifications, however, are up to 162,400--81 per cent. of people now referred are disqualified because of the draconian interpretation of the legislation. I shall give examples of what the Minister does in terms of her Department's political direction and the consequences for everyone in the labour market, particularly people who find great difficulty in gaining employment.

I think that it was the hon. Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Mr. Howarth) who said on Second Reading that, if the Government provided employment measures, jobseekers would look after themselves. That is a general paraphrase, but his analysis was correct. If the Government did not stand back, but became involved with both the public and private sectors in stimulating the economy and the development of a job strategy, people who seek employment would quickly and readily seek and gain employment in the labour market.

Even the Government's strategic surveys show that more than 80 per cent. of people seeking employment are absolutely desperate for employment, and will take almost any job at any price. The Bill is about driving them down even further, in cutting their rights to adequate training, employment levels and standards at work, including employment in terms of labour markets and the right to a minimum wage.

Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. I remind the hon. Gentleman that we are considering not the whole Bill, but a group of amendments, including his own, which he is supposedly moving.

Mr. McCartney: I am moving my amendments. Clause 6 is at the heart of the Bill. As Conservative Members will know, it contains availability for work provisions and is wide-ranging because of the amendments in another place. Our amendments are on the Order Paper. They cover a range of issues relating to the clause, they have all been accepted by the Speaker as in order, and they are contained within the family of amendments relating to the clause. I said at the beginning that I intended to refer to the other amendments that were rightly on the Order Paper. That is what I am doing, and intend to continue to do, in making my points about the Bill.

Other fears have been expressed on the labour market system that will replace current computer systems in Employment Service job centres. It is feared that it will be

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used to refer more claimants for adjudication in relation to refusing vacancies, rather than to improve the matching of claimants to suitable jobs.

Currently, refusal of vacancies offered by the Employment Service carries a benefit sanction of up to six months, but with automatic hardship payments for those eligible for income support. Under the jobseeker's regime, those automatic hardship payments will cease, and all claimants will have to demonstrate hardship, with childless claimants banned from making an application in the first two weeks of sanction--for two weeks, they will be without any form of income. The figures on the strategy, even before the Bill is passed, outline the savagery of the present arrangements. After the Minister intervened, I said that the levels of referrals and disqualifications were at record levels. Those record levels will increase dramatically with the passing of the Bill, and in particular clause 6. It is true that, along with clause 6, the Government will utilise other connected measures to undermine and further restrict the capability of unemployed people to meet the requirements of the availability for work tests. It is astonishing that, when we should be freeing up the restrictions to make it easier for people to seek employment, the Government, through clause 6, will restrict people if they are unable to explain fully that efforts have been made to seek employment.

Under clause 6, they will not be encouraged to seek employment; they will be undermined and will run the risk of losing benefit. That will involve people studying part-time, those looking for employment, those doing both, people with disability, and carers. On a range of issues, the clause will undermine people, and for what? Simply to cut the training budget and the benefits already paid to those in employment.

I want to give an absolute example of what I am talking about, and why the Minister and her hon. Friends are increasingly treated with utter contempt outside this place. A constituent of mine visited me some four weeks ago. He has living difficulties and special needs. He resides with his brother, who provides him with the support required to cope with day-to-day routine. Up to 1990, he was in regular employment, either in sheltered or semi- sheltered accommodation, or in the private sector doing unskilled work. Since then, he has been unable to find employment.

My constituent was invited to an interview. Despite his disabilities, there was no referral to a disability officer--he was given no right to be represented, but was brought in on his own for the interview. He was asked what his wishes were in respect of employment, and he answered honestly: he wished to work in a factory or a warehouse or to find some other form of manual occupation. He was then asked what he meant by that, and how many hours he would like to work. He stated that he was prepared to work from 8 am until 4 pm on Monday to Friday, and from 8 am to 12 noon on Saturday--a total of 44 hours, six days a week. He said that there was no restriction on how much he should earn, but the hours were in relation to his own personal circumstances and the need for his brother to assist him to and from work. The Minister's Department has a record of sheltered accommodation.

After supplying the information, my constituent received a letter from the Employment Service threatening his entitlement to benefit. Naturally, that caused him

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concern. When he and his brother came to my advice centre, they were in a state of distress. I thought that there must have been an error--no more than that--and that it could not be true. My constituent had offered to work 44 hours a week, six days a week. He did not give a level of income--he would take whatever was provided to him. The acting senior adjudication manager wrote to me. The letter states:

"Any person who claims unemployment benefit must be capable of and available for work."

Fine.

"However, if they . . . impose restrictions on the nature of the work they will accept, or the hours they will work, or the rate they will accept, or the locality of the employment, or any other conditions they are prepared to accept, they would not be entitled to unemployment benefit . . . unless they can show that they have reasonable prospects of finding work within the restrictions". The restrictions are: being willing to work 44 hours, six days a week, for any amount of money. My constituent did not ask for travelling time, or even for time off or lunch breaks--nothing. All he asked for was a reasonable time so that he could be assisted back home because of his disabilities.

The letter continued:

"The person who interviewed"

my constituent

"explained that employers who employ people for the types of work that he was looking for . . . mainly require greater flexibility in day time hours than those stated on the form and often require shift work."

So six days, 44 hours, a week, are not enough any more. The letter continued:

"In"

my constituent's

"case there is no evidence in the papers we have to show that the only reason he can work from 8 am to 4 pm Monday to Friday and 8 am to 12 noon on Saturday is because of his physical or mental condition."

My constituent was refused benefit, he has lost all right to an income, and his elderly brother now has to look after him on his meagre income. Is that really the way the employment market must operate? It is a consequence of the Minister's policies. That is the reality.

5 pm

Miss Widdecombe: Given the rather unsatisfactory state of affairs resulting from the facts as the hon. Gentleman has stated them, why did not he make me aware of the case? Will he now do so, and allow me to examine it?

Mr. McCartney: I shall certainly send the case to the hon. Lady. Is she now giving the commitment that, when hon. Members submit cases and questions to her, she will not refer them to the chief executive of the agency? Will she no longer say, "The chief executive will answer, because this is not my responsibility"?

She cannot have it both ways. She knows that, as a matter of course, she and her colleagues refer Members' complaints and cases back to the person to whom we originally complained. The hon. Lady cannot wriggle out of the embarrassment of her policies with the weak, limp excuse that I should have written to her. The case is a consequence of her policies.

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Miss Widdecombe: I am most grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his continuing generosity in giving way, if not for the generosity of his comments. As a courtesy to the hon. Gentleman, I offered to look carefully at the case. In the first instance, anything that refers to the way in which a particular case has been handled in a particular employment office would go to the Employment Service. However, that is not to say that a Minister would never become involved. On the broader point, will the hon. Gentleman admit that he is making the case for the Bill? It specifies 40 hours general availability, and the jobseeker's agreement will set out the exact times that people can work. Agreements can be made about restrictions. I have already particularly quoted disability as a reason for a restriction. If the restriction is not acceptable, the case can go through a process of adjudication. Therefore, will the hon. Gentleman now admit that he is making the case for the Bill?

Mr. McCartney: To be perfectly frank, that is an absolutely silly comment. The current regulations are replicated in the Bill. The hon. Lady knows that the gentleman in my case already has current rights because of his disability. The problem is the Government's constant drive to undermine people's rights to benefit. Instead, they should be doing something about the high unemployment level. The Department is taking draconian action, even against the most vulnerable in the community who are seeking employment. It beggars belief that the hon. Lady should suggest that the case I have cited makes the case for the Bill.

The clause is all about continuing draconian measures and leaving people vulnerable to the possibility of losing their rights to benefit over a whole range of circumstances, including disability. The reason we raised the issue in Committee and again today is that the Minister has not even convinced the disability groups that the Bill's proposals will protect people with disabilities--especially the changes in incapacity benefit. Those changes, together with this clause, are a major attack on people with disabilities in the labour market.

I want to deal now with the question of restrictions and the rate of remuneration for employment. Our amendment in this respect goes to the heart of the Government's policies in the labour market. We know that the Government want the longest working hours in Europe--and they have achieved that, after 16 years. We know that the Government want the least holiday entitlement in Europe--they have achieved that after 16 years. We know that the Government want the poorest pensions in Europe--they have achieved that after 16 years. We know that they want the highest levels of insecurity in Europe--they have achieved that after 16 years. Finally, they want to impose the lowest pay in Europe. Britain's wage rates are still just above those of the new entrants to the European Union, but the Government plod on regardless.

The final piece of the Government's jigsaw to deregulate the labour market and introduce insecurity in the marketplace is their wish to drive down pay rates. As part of their strategy, they have removed the legal right of young people under 21 not to be paid paltry wages and salaries. They have abolished the wages councils and inspectorates that helped to protect millions of workers. As a result, in real terms the Government have driven down the wages of many people, among them the most vulnerable workers, in many sectors of the economy.

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Mr. Jim Cunningham (Coventry, South-East): I hope that my hon. Friend intends to comment on the latest developments in Government policy--to force people to take out insurance policies against unemployment.

Mr. McCartney: My hon. Friend is right--the Government believe that the market can resolve anything and everything. Of course, the vast majority of unemployed people cannot afford insurance. The Government are also trying to force people to take out mortgage insurance policies. They want to opt out--

Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman is going wide of the matter that is being considered. I suggest that he continues with the main thrust of his argument.

Mr. McCartney: I apologise, Madam Deputy Speaker. I am too soft with hon. Members, and allow them to take me down highways and byways. I shall try to be a little tougher with interventions. After 16 years of Tory government, the bottom tenth of the population is 17 per cent. worse off in absolute terms than when the Conservative party took office. The proportion of households living in poverty has tripled, from 7 to 24 per cent. since the late 1970s. Some 300,000 people earn less than £1.50 an hour. At least 1.3 million people earn less than £2.50 an hour. Women are badly hit by low pay, with almost 700,000 of them earning less than £2.50 an hour.

In every region of Britain where unemployment is high, there is low pay-- whether it be Yorkshire, Humberside, the north, London, the east or the west midlands, the eastern region or the south-west of England. High unemployment goes hand in hand and side by side with low pay.

We now know that, between 1984 and 1994, there has been an increase of more than 1 million people holding down two--sometimes even three--part-time or temporary jobs just to make ends meet. A further 4.5 million people earn so little that they live on or below the poverty line. That is the reality, after 16 years of the Tory Government's economic miracle.

Young people are also badly hit. One in three earn less than the national insurance threshold of £57 a week. Eight out of 10 jobs for 16-year- olds, and seven out of 10 for 17-year-olds, now pay less than £2 an hour. Since 1990, hourly pay rates have fallen in real terms by 15 per cent. for 16-year-olds and by 11 per cent. for 17-year-olds. Low pay is not an accident; it is a central feature of Tory economic policy. It is a central feature of the Bill. The Government, through the Bill, will drive down wages even further.

I want to refer to the hypocrisy of the Government and their absolute audacity in saying on the one hand that they want to introduce a minimum wage, while on the other giving support to people like Iain Vallance, the chairman of British Telecom, who earns £383 an hour--more than the 1.3 million to whom I referred earn in four weeks; and to Cedric Brown--good old Cedric--the chief executive of British Gas, who earns £9,838.50 per week, what those 1.3 million people earn in two years.

Lord Young, the former Tory Cabinet Minister who is chairman of Cable and Wireless, attacked teachers for their greed earlier this year. Lord Young earns more in one month than those 1. 3 million people earn in a decade. Lord Younger, another former Tory Cabinet Minister--

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Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Gentleman again, but I must remind him that, although this group of amendments is reasonably wide, it is certainly not wide enough to include extended references such as the hon. Gentleman is making.

Mr. McCartney: The heart of the Bill and the jobseeker's agreement is that people will be required to indicate before they get benefit what level of pay they will work for. The Government will take measures in respect of those at the lowest level of income to ensure that those people work for £1 an hour or less. Those at the upper level--those who earn more in a month than millions of people earn in a decade--suffer no restrictions on their incomes, and are in fact encouraged.

That is why it is important to highlight not just the hypocrisy of the measure, but the social injustice and unfairness of it. The British people will be outraged if the Bill goes through tonight without an appropriate debate about how the Government defend the rights of fat cats while undermining the rights of the low paid. The Secretary of State for Employment, whom I have renamed the Secretary of State for greed and privilege, is a vociferous opponent of the amendment, which is a precursor to a minimum wage. The right hon. Gentleman earns £1,304.21 a week; more than 15 million Britons earn in a month. The Government have no shame at all when it comes to this issue.

Mr. Thomas Graham (Renfrew, West and Inverclyde): My hon. Friend may not be aware that a lemonade factory in my constituency is paying folk who have worked in the place for 20 years £1.90 an hour. There is a sweetie factory not far from my home which nearly pays its workers in sweeties--they are paid £2 an hour. One woman--a top confectioner with about 30 years' experience--went to work at the factory and was told that she was to be given a short-term contract. After that contract was finished, she was to be given £2.50 an hour. It is mind-boggling that the Government are allowing our folk to be paid in sweeties.

Mr. McCartney: My hon. Friend is right. The Bill will provide unscrupulous employers with a large number of unemployed people from local labour markets who can be paid on or below benefit levels. There is no minimum level in respect of the right to refuse employment measure under the legislation, which means that the Secretary of State is telling unscrupulous employers that they can offer through his Department a range of jobs--full-time, part-time or temporary, it does not matter--with pay on or below the level of benefit. The Department will secure a number of people from the ranks of the unemployed to take those jobs. That is deeply anti-competitive, as well as unfair.

What about the local employers in the labour market who pay decent wages, train people and have proper standards? They will be undermined by the proposal, which is about not just social unfairness and injustice but economic strategy. The Bill shows us why we need to invest in people and in the research and development of goods and services. People should not compete for skivvy pay in skivvy jobs and insecurity at work. That is the difference between the Opposition and the Minister.

Ms Eagle: Does my hon. Friend agree that paying people such low wages undermines the national insurance system, as so many people earn under the threshold and

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will not pay into the system? Not only does the Bill undermine the national insurance system by means-testing benefit for the first time: it completely destabilises the system, because so many people will simply not earn enough to make contributions.

Mr. McCartney: My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and that is a part of the long-term strategy of the Government. The Bill is essentially an enabling piece of legislation--

Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. I remind the hon. Gentleman--not for the first time--that we are considering not the whole Bill, but a group of amendments.

5.15 pm

Mr. McCartney: My hon. Friend the Member for Wallasey (Ms Eagle) was making a point about the £57 national insurance contribution threshold. Under the clause with which the amendment deals, individuals who refuse to take up employment at or below--sometimes significantly below-- the benefit level will lose their right to benefit. That is the point that my hon. Friend was making. The scheme will result in a net loss to the Exchequer from national insurance, which the Government want to make up by private insurance schemes. That is why I said that the Bill forms part of a wider agenda to rid ourselves of the whole principle of contributory benefits and replace them with private sector insurance.

Is it not astonishing that someone who gets over the first hurdle and says that he will work for wages on or below the benefit level is not given the key to opportunity or success, or a guarantee of employment or a training scheme? Not at all. If they are 18 to 24 years old, they are guaranteed that they will immediately lose 20 per cent. of their current benefit. For co-operating with the Government and agreeing to accept wages below £2 or £1 an hour, that person is fined £499.

An 18 to 24-year-old who has a partner working full-time and who agrees to accept all the restrictions placed on him by the Government is not congratulated or thanked--not a bit of it. He loses £1,457, or 60 per cent. of his income. For simply agreeing to participate in the jobseeker's measures, those who already have the lowest incomes and who are living in absolute poverty have a 60 per cent. cut in their income.

How do the Government expect these families to live? How can they possibly live on the same level of income for a year that Sir Iain Vallance receives in just over an hour? It is astonishing that the Government believe that people in Britain will accept such purgatory as we come to the millennium.

Those who are aged 25 and over and who are working full-time will lose 50 per cent. of their benefit. Those of a similar age who have £8,000 savings--those who have done what the Government asked them to do, and who have tried to save when they worked, and to get redundancy if they lost their jobs--lose 70 per cent. of their income. That is scandalous.

For all those reasons, I ask my right hon. and hon. Friends to support the amendment. If Conservative Members are serious about ridding this country of

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inequality and insecurity, and about investing to create employment and success while not taxing for failure, they should also support the amendment.

Mr. Alan Howarth (Stratford-on-Avon): New clause 6--which Lords amendment No.6 incorporates--is the core of the Bill. A range of highly contentious propositions in the Bill are found there. I am concerned that the requirement that a jobseeker should be available for any employment may have some miserable consequences, and I take it that the amendment to which the hon. Member for Makerfield (Mr. McCartney) has just spoken has been tabled with that thought very much in mind.

I fear that the requirement to be available for any employment will lead to more poverty in work. I would be grateful if my hon. Friend the Minister would clarify to the House--perhaps other hon. Members know the answer-- whether it is the Government's policy that the jobseeker should be required to accept jobs that pay below the income support or jobseeker's allowance rate. If that is the case, there will be some very worrying implications, and it will certainly lead to much destitution and suffering. My hon. Friend may wish to respond to that point when she winds up.

If that were to be the Government's policy, it would also lead to a deterioration in the quality of our economy. We would be moving towards a low-pay, low-skill and low-productivity economy. Such a strategy would carry with it mounting costs in terms of social security, health expenditure and expenditure on law and order--the very escalation in public expenditure which my right hon. and hon. Friends wish to avert.

Some of our most modern and, indeed, best-known employers will be all too ready to exploit the absence of any floor to pay. We hear, for example, of the phenomenon which is, I believe, known as reservism, whereby a person is taken on--employed--by, for example, a retailer, but has to wait by the telephone for the moment at which he or, more commonly, she may be required. Such people have to be available for 40 hours, but they are expected to work for only 15 hours. The particular difficulty is that it becomes impossible for those employees to put together a portfolio of earnings that is sufficient to keep them in decency and dignity.

Miss Widdecombe: I am becoming increasingly puzzled by references by the Opposition and now by my hon. Friend to changes in the law. There is currently no floor underneath somebody's right to refuse a job. If we do not have adverse effects at the moment, why, if there is no change, does my hon. Friend believe that there will be substantial adverse effects in the future?

Mr. Howarth: I would have hoped that my right hon. and hon. Friends would have taken advantage of this legislative opportunity to ensure positively that the eventualities that I apprehend do not occur.

Consideration of availability for employment necessitates consideration of the policies and regulations on study and training. We need to upgrade our labour force--in the words of Disraeli, to "elevate the condition of the people."

I fear that the Bill fails to take the opportunity that it might to do that. The Labour party's amendment (a) is also germane to education and training.

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The proposed new clause, the subject of the Lords amendment, requires a jobseeker to be immediately available for work. My right hon. and hon. Friends have given some considerable attention to the relationship between study and benefits under the jobseeker's allowance. I fear, however, that they may have missed the opportunity for a thorough-going reform of this area of policy. That is what is needed, because we must make up our minds that we are going to invest in our nation's skills and in the intellectual quality of our labour force. Today's labour market requires literacy, numeracy, ever-greater degrees of intellectual sophistication and, of course, a capacity to handle with ease information technology, as well as personal confidence and adaptability. All that argues for higher and higher levels of education and training.

Long-term unemployment is certainly concentrated among those who have few or no qualifications. I, like Opposition Members, fear that our society may be polarising, essentially between those who have fared well in the education system and those who have not. A Tory Government cannot wish to promote such polarisation.

I put it to my right hon. and hon. Friends that it will cost the taxpayer more in the long term if we fail to invest in education and training. Even from the point of view of the Treasury, that must make sense. I recognise, of course, that there are difficulties in using the jobseeker's allowance as a means of subsistence for students in a range of circumstances. The job of Ministers, however, is to overcome the difficulties to achieve the purposes that, we are all agreed, are desirable. We need much more flexibility built into the system. We need bridges at least between the system of grants for education, the system of funding for training that comes from the Department of Employment and the benefits system. I cannot see that we are using the opportunity of policy-making in the Bill to achieve that kind of constructive integration.

My right hon. and hon. Friends may fear that, if we invested, through whatever system, more extensively in education and training, there would be a terrible visitation by the financial markets because the Government would be found guilty by the markets of letting public expenditure rip. I strongly suspect that international investors would prefer to invest in an economy that was upgrading its skills and intellectual capacity than in an economy that was devaluing them. I have been puzzled, therefore, by the decision to cut the training budget and by the rumour which is now circulating that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Employment has offered the Chief Secretary to the Treasury a further cut in his Department's budget in this year's public expenditure negotiations.

Come what may, we must extend to all improved education and training opportunities. We must extend them to the low-paid, to people working in small businesses, to people doing part-time work and to people who have hitherto been poorly educated. Nowadays, we are not bad at providing better opportunities for those who are already relatively successful and advantaged, but we must ensure that these opportunities are extended throughout our society and our labour force.

I hope that my right hon. and hon. Friends will not be too preoccupied with the few who may "study" as a device to avoid work. The huge majority of the unemployed want to be able to work and they want to be able to work in better jobs.

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