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Ms Candy Atherton (Falmouth and Camborne): Hear, hear.
Mr. Healey: I have to say that it is one of the leading areas, not least as a tribute to all the work done to develop the new deal by my hon. Friend the Member for Falmouth and Camborne (Ms Atherton).
I sat in on a discussion with local employers--small employers, in the main--signed up to the new deal. They said that the local economy was all right and that they were doing relatively well. They were looking to expand, but, being small, they could perhaps offer only a new part-time post. However, with the new deal, the job subsidy and the training dowry that comes with the new deal recruit, they could turn that part-time post into a full-time one.
We heard the same evidence from the district manager of the Eastbourne office of the Employment Service. She made it clear that in Eastbourne the wage subsidy was in large part used as a subsidy for small firms, and was essential in their expansion. I am therefore concerned that, by focusing simply on employment, and not on the potential for employment growth as well, we are to some extent missing the opportunity to get more for the money that we are investing in the new deal.
The Department's response to some of the points in our report is rather vague. In response to recommendations 11 and 12 in particular, it talks rather vaguely about what it terms a "sample survey of employers" in relation to new deal job creation, rather than building the issue into the Employment Service's negotiations of new deal contracts, employer by employer. I hope that the Minister can at least give us some more details about the planned evaluation of the extent to which the new deal is contributing to economic growth and local economic expansion.
The Committee's report deals at some length with the gateway and with the personal advisers who are the essential foundations of the gateway. Personal advisers are not just the starting point for the new deal; in my view, they are the pivot on which the success or failure of the new deal programme for the client turns.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Bishop Auckland (Mr. Foster), the Chairman of the Committee, described personal advisers as agents of transformation within the Employment Service. I agree. To my mind, personal advisers are the single most important innovation in the new deal for young people and in the new deal for lone parents. I pay tribute to the work that they do and to the way in which they have transformed the experience of the programme for the young people and lone parents involved. Personal advisers have to be the basis on which we develop the future of our employment and benefit services, and certainly the future of our proposed single work-focused gateway.
Although the report endorsed the role of personal advisers, it also reflected criticism from providers that they were not referring new deal clients fast enough,
either to providers of gateway services or to providers of options. Instead of experiencing the gateway as an intensive spell of assessment, tasters and guidance, many young people found that they were on a regime of weekly or fortnightly interviews with their new deal personal advisers.
Having examined the problem in some detail in Rotherham, I have found that it is not caused simply by the personal adviser wanting to build a solid relationship with the new deal client before referring him to a possible provider. Many young people in Rotherham area have been to the providers before. They have done the interpersonal skills, time-keeping and job-search skills courses. Even within the new deal programme, they regard referrals to some of the same places and agencies as merely another part of the scheme.
Rotherham has been selected as a pilot area for the 25-plus new deal. We are linking the completion of basic skills modules with what we are calling a "skills for Rotherham passport". Under the scheme, employers in Rotherham, organised by the new deal employers coalition, guarantee a job interview and work trial to any unemployed person who has this passport. In that way, unemployed people are beginning to see a clear link between the employability skills training that they are required to undertake and workplace outcomes and potential results.
In Rotherham, we need to reflect that experience and replicate it in the main new deal for 18 to 24-year-olds. We need also to make the linkage between the gateway and the new deal options a good deal more flexible. For instance, in the gateway period there may be training for a particular job that a young person could be lined up to take. There may, for instance, be more workplace tasters and fewer jobcentre or classroom sessions. There may also be the opportunity for basic skills courses, partly delivered in gateway, as part of the option that the young person moves on to, thereby enabling him or her to move on to that option more quickly.
Ms Candy Atherton (Falmouth and Camborne):
I am grateful to be able to take part in the debate. It has been a fascinating experience as a Member in a pathfinder area to monitor the new deal for 18 to 24-year-olds, and an area where the new deal for the over-25s is being piloted.
I am a member of the Select Committee, and we have seen other members of it in fine performance this evening. I have found the investigations that we have been conducting as we monitor the new deal some of the most interesting aspects of my work as a Member of this place. I sometimes wish that we had a new deal to enable us to spend more time monitoring this work. It seems that this interest resides on the Government Benches, given the vast ranks of empty Opposition Benches.
Mr. Keetch:
Will the hon. Lady give way?
Mr. Keetch:
I always enjoy intervening on the hon. Lady. Does she think that more interest might be shown on
Ms Atherton:
The hon. Gentleman's memory is a little short. I remember debating employment less than three weeks ago, when the hon. Member for Havant (Mr. Willetts) was present. If the hon. Member for Hereford (Mr. Keetch) had been present, he might have contributed to the debate on the Gracious Speech as well as being involved in this debate.
It is amazing to see the results of the new deal. Some hon. Members may remember my holding forth last winter on a young black man in Cornwall who wanted to work in home insulation, but whose dreadlocks, unfortunately, were seen by a local employer as a disadvantage. The local company was looking for a new deal recruit and the young man was desperate to work in home insulation. Sadly, the company told the jobcentre, "No way."
The young man's personal adviser talked to the company and with the young man. His adviser persuaded him to compromise by putting on a hat, and persuaded the company to give him a try. Two weeks ago, I met that young man again as I helped promote home insulation for older people in the Falmouth area. He is now employed full time with the company--well past six months--and he has been joined by another new dealer.
Mr. Healey:
Is he wearing his hat?
Ms Atherton:
Wait. Both he and the company are as happy as Larry. He no longer wears a hat and, interestingly, he has cut his hair slightly. He still sports the dreadlocks, but everyone is happy.
Some of the life stories and life-changing events of the past eleven and a half months are breathtaking. One example is the young man who had been a heroin addict in Cornwall for four years. He failed to tell his bewildered family, and finally admitted all to his personal adviser. He then felt able to tell his father, accepted help from the community drugs team, is now off heroin and is about to start the full-time education option.
How, I ask Opposition Members, does one put a price on that? How does one compute the costs of that young man's benefits, the tax that he was not paying, the possibility of his family following in his footsteps, the probability of a life leading into crime, and the effects on the rest of the community? I could go on. Those are the social costs that never appear on a spreadsheet, but mean the earth to those whom they affect.
I find as I visit local companies that many of the young people taken on through the new deal have been promoted and offered full-time permanent jobs at the end of six months. That will be the key to the long-term success of the new deal. Charities and voluntary organisations are taking on the young people when they finish their six months. It is now rare for me not to find a new dealer on my visits to local companies or organisations.
There is no doubt about it--the Cornish know a good deal when they see one. That is why the grapevine has spread the news. Young people on the new deal are to be found in all parts of the county. In an area where jobs are precious, more than 1,200 job opportunities have been notified by employers across the county. More than 600 employers have signed up.
The figures are illuminating: 385 people have been placed in unsubsidised work, not including the young people who found their own jobs during the gateway; 445 are on the employment option; 332 are in full-time education; and about 400 are split evenly between the voluntary sector option and the environmental task force. If one puts all those bewildering figures together, one finds that more than 1,500 young people have been offered opportunities that they would not otherwise have had.
In an area where almost 90 per cent. of our companies employ fewer than 10 people, it is clear that many small businesses each see the new deal as the way forward to create jobs and develop their businesses. Indeed, as was mentioned earlier, in our report we note the capacity- building opportunities that the new deal presents tosmall companies. I have anecdotal evidence of that from employers across Cornwall, as has my hon. Friend the Member for Wentworth (Mr. Healey) from his area. I pay tribute to his work in Rotherham, as he paid tribute to mine in Cornwall.
Employers in Cornwall are saying that they have made the jump from employing a part-time worker to employing a full-time worker because of the opportunities that the new deal creates. The Government could pay more attention to that aspect of the new deal. Particularly in areas such as mine, it has been a major incentive for employers to improve their competitiveness locally and expand their companies.
One of the issues that Opposition Members raised frequently during the debate on the Queen's Speech was the costs of the new deal and the alleged lack of benefits to employers. I challenged hon. Members to visit Cornwall and hear for themselves what local employers are saying. What was said from the Opposition Benches bore no relation to what employers in the county--let alone young people--are saying to me. Surprise, surprise--Opposition Members have not taken up the challenge to visit an area which they know is a Tory-free zone. They dare not. The new deal is one of the great success stories of the Government, and there have been many in the county of Cornwall.
I find it wonderful to watch a previously ground-down service--the Employment Service--thrive and bloom with the new deal. I do not want civil servants to feel that they cannot be proud of working for Government. There is no doubt that, where the Employment Service locally has offered inspired leadership and driven the programme forward, it has succeeded.
There are lessons to be learned, and the reports that we are debating today--as well as future reports--will focus on that. I pay tribute to Michelle Maslen, the leader of the Employment Service in Cornwall, for the work that she and her team have done to drive forward the new deal in the county. Let us be clear about this: the offices look different, and attitudes are different. An energetic and committed Minister--my right hon. Friend theMinister for Employment, Welfare to Work and Equal
Opportunities--has been vital in driving the programme forward, and, oh, what a difference there is between the Employment Service now and under the Tories.
Our report on the pathfinders placed heavy emphasis on the importance of personal advisers. Members of the Select Committee share concern that they may become overloaded and that quality might be sacrificed for quantity. The personal advisers have been one of the great successes of the new deal. Let us not waste this opportunity to invigorate civil servants and put pride back into the service.
Time is moving on, so I shall not say much of what I wanted to say. My hon. Friends--[Interruption.] My hon. Friends are telling me that I am all right to continue; I have time.
We are currently piloting the new deal for people aged 25 and over, and I am pleased that early entry is offered to people over 50 who have been unemployed for more than three months. Crucially for an area that had five of the top 20 unemployment travel-to-work areas this January, there will be entry from day one of unemployment for seasonal workers. I am talking not only about tourism, but about our struggling horticulture industry, which is facing severe difficulties. Day-one entry is very important. Classic low pay alongside seasonal employment has always been a double whammy for many in the county. Roll on April, and the national minimum wage.
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