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Malcolm Wicks: I am interested in the hon. Gentleman's analysis of incapacity benefit and welcome his support for our proposals. Given the figure that he has just mentioned, what would be his explanation of why, under the previous Government, the number of people on incapacity benefit rose threefold?
Andrew Selous: The hon. Gentleman will realise that the United Kingdom economy has been through a period of great transition over the past 15 to 20 years. Certain restructuring needed to take place. It would have taken place under a Labour Government had one been in power at the time. I do not know whether he is suggesting that some of the industries of that time should be carrying on with large state subsidies. Necessary transformations took place. They would have taken place whichever party was in power. If he is fair in his assessment of recent economic history, he will probably agree.
I come back to economic activity and to the intervention from the hon. Member for North Durham (Mr. Jones). We know from labour market statistics released only last week, on 16 February, by the Office for National Statistics that 1,126,000 of our young people aged between 16 and 24 were not in work, not studying and not training in December 2004. That figure is 44,000 higher than when the Government took office. In the trade, they are known as NEETs—not in employment, education or training.
I wonder what all those people do. I wonder where they are. I have to think quite hard of the type of families that those 1,126,000 young people are in. What is their situation? That is a fantastic waste of potential for the UK labour force. We need to make a much greater effort to get those young people into employment.
The Government say that we need migration. It is clear that we do in certain parts of the economy but we need to look to our own resource within this country and to get those young people into the public service jobs that we need and into areas where there are skills shortages. We should make a far greater effort to do that.
The hon. Member for North Durham talked about unemployment. I come on to that willingly. We need to remember that we are in the 13th year of growth, which was set on a good curve in 1992. If he looks at the record, he will find that, between 1993 and 1997, when we were in power, unemployment fell by 908,000. There was a 31 per cent. fall. Between 1997 and 2004, it fell by 607,000. That is a 30 per cent. fall. Therefore, there was a 31 per cent. fall under us and a 30 per cent. fall in slightly more than seven years under this Government. He will see that the curve has carried on and that our record stands up well. We are obviously delighted that all those people have jobs but, as I said, those statistics
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speak for themselves and they are based on the back of 13 years of growth, established originally under a Conservative Government.
Mr. Kevan Jones: I am glad that the hon. Gentleman has recognised the good job that the Labour Government are doing in getting people back into work, but the fact is that the last Conservative Government wrecked my constituency by throwing people on to the dole, and used incapacity benefit to massage the figures and to write off a generation of people who were still economically active. Will he now admit that the last Tory Government used incapacity benefit in the cruellest way in constituencies such as mine, which led to many people thinking that they had no future in employment at all?
Andrew Selous: The hon. Gentleman is keen to trawl through recent economic history, but as I said in response to an earlier intervention, I suspect that, whichever party had been in power, it would have been necessary to take difficult decisions about restructuring across the economy. Those were indeed difficult decisions, and I am aware that they hugely and painfully affected many people's lives.
Andrew Selous: I have given way to the hon. Gentleman twice, and if he will allow me I will wind up my remarks. For the record, I repeat that there was a fall in unemployment of 908,000—some 31 per cent.—between 1993 and 1997. I am of course delighted that it has continued to fall, but it has done so from the firm base established under a Conservative Government, with growth starting in 1992.
4.30 pm
Mr. Nigel Waterson (Eastbourne) (Con): I am delighted to be able to take part in this debate, although I am saddened that it has not attracted the depth and width of interest that it might have done among Members. It is of particular concern that not a single Government Back Bencher has thought it necessary to make a proper speech on uprating; their constituents will wonder where they were this afternoon.
The social security bill is growing. The Prime Minister said at his party's 1996 conference that that would not happen under a Labour Government, but the opposite has proved the case. There is growing means-testing throughout the entire social security world, and the related expenditure is often self-defeating. As my hon. Friend the Member for Havant (Mr. Willetts) made clear, we will not vote against the uprating, although it remains to be seen whether the Liberal Democrats will, as it has been their habit to do so. However, it is a concern that so few Labour Members have felt it necessary to take part in this debate.
I want to touch on several matters that have been raised. This has, rightly, been a wide-ranging debate, and those of us who have taken the trouble to be present throughout have covered a galaxy of different issues. I am looking forward to the Minister for Pensions' winding-up speech. He has much more time than he
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might otherwise have had, and he will doubtless be able to dot every "i" and cross every "t", having had a chance to warm up in Westminster Hall this morning.
As is often the case, the Government have produced a high-flown ambition: they want to abolish child poverty. However, they are setting about achieving that, in part, by changing the target. They want to exclude housing costs, which appears to lift about 1 million children out of poverty simply at the stroke of a pen. As Conservatives, we believe that the conventional way—focusing on those below 60 per cent. of median income—should be maintained, and that the Government are wrong to move the goalposts in the middle of trying to implement their high-flown policy.
There has already been some discussion about the myriad failings of the Child Support Agency. In my other role as a member of the Work and Pensions Committee, I have had the pleasure—if that is the right word—of hearing evidence about IT and managerial failings from a series of people, including the Secretary of State, his predecessor and, of course, the much-discussed Mr. Doug Smith, who I believe is still the CSA chief executive. We know that of the 478,000 applications to the new scheme since April 2003, only 61,000 non-resident parents had made a first payment. We also know that there has been a 30 per cent. increase in the number of complaints to the independent case examiner since 2003.
Behind that figure, there must also be many people who have simply given up altogether. There must be many who have given up trying to contact the CSA by telephone, who have given up trying to get any sense out of the person to whom they are talking—if they do manage to get someone on the other end of the telephone—and who have certainly not gone as far as contacting the independent case examiner. When Mr. Smith gave evidence to my Committee, he said that the Child Support Agency had an aspiration to deal with these matters in an average time—between first contact with the parent with care through to having payment arrangements in place—of six weeks. At the time he gave that evidence, it turned out that in the real world, the average was somewhere between 15 and 22 weeks. I am not aware how long it takes at the moment.
The annual report and accounts for the CSA showed an outstanding debt of £720 million in March 2004, with a further £947 million classified as uncollectable. My Committee had a lot to say about that, but I shall not go into all the details on this occasion. We had much to say about the failings of enforcement and—[Interruption.] I am talking about the Select Committee on which I have the honour of serving under the distinguished chairmanship of the hon. Member for Roxburgh and Berwickshire (Sir Archy Kirkwood). Peebles used to be somewhere in that constituency name, but it seems to have got lost in the wash.
I am not just talking about figures, or beating up high-flown officials within the CSA for their apparent ineptitude, as the fact remains that the CSA has failed to collect £750 million owed to some of the poorest families in Britain.
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When the Secretary of State came before the Select Committee side by side with Mr. Doug Smith, the body language was fascinating to watch. As the magnitude of the awfulness of the CSA's performance emerged, there was a perceptible growth in the gap between the Secretary of State and the chief executive.
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