Eighth Standing Committee on Delegated Legislation |
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Mr. Boswell: Briefly, Mr. Olner, because I am conscious of your watching this point, I construe positively the Minister’s saying that she is in favour of choice and of encouraging people to work or to take their pension with a new set of incentives. That is welcome in principle. For the avoidance of doubt, can she confirm that she is talking about people at retirement age? She would not want her remarks to be construed as referring to people of working age who can work and do not have a disability, which is the subject of the regulation. Jane Kennedy: The hon. Gentleman is right. He put a few specific questions, including how far the private sector is involved in provision for an intensive period of activity. All support beyond that of Jobcentre Plus is provided by the private, voluntary or community sector. All training, advice and guidance is offered and delivered by a range of providers. We are not prescriptive about who should provide it; we are clear about the value of providing diverse opportunities. The hon. Gentleman asked how the work affects people at the margins of areas, and whether, for example, a change of address would have an impact on their ability to access or be drawn into the pilots. Participation is determined by the location of the jobcentre. If the customer is referred to or signs on at a jobcentre in the pilot area, they are required to participate. If they move, there may be some impact. The hon. Gentleman asked how many people have been sanctioned. Of the 801 people who had participated in the pilot up to January, only three have had sanctions applied. That may reassure people about the way in which the sanctions are applied and about the sensitivity of Jobcentre Plus staff. Alan Howarth (Newport, East) (Lab): May I ask my right hon. Friend for clarification? She has acknowledged, as I think we all do, that in general it is harder for people in the 50-plus age group to get jobs, and that even notwithstanding the remarkable improvement in the economy in recent years, there are areas in which it is still particularly hard to find jobs. Does she consider it appropriate that the same sanctions regime be applied to people in the 50 to 59 age group as to the younger age groups; or does she recognise that it is perhaps harder for them than for the other age groups, and there should, therefore, be some mitigation or modification of the regime to take account of the realities? Jane Kennedy: My right hon. Friend asks a good question. Originally, we believed that it was inappropriate to apply the same sanctions regime, so we made the process voluntary. The pilots are designed to test precisely that point, among others: to ask whether it is appropriate to apply the sanctions to that age group, whether they have the effect that we hope for and, even though only three have been applied, what the other effects of applying sanctions are. I shall come to the point made by the hon. Member for Chesterfield (Paul Holmes) about precisely what evaluation will be made and what data will be available. Due to the sensitivity of the matter, however, it will be important to ensure that when informing policy to achieve our laudable aims and objectives, we do not do more damage to the individuals we want to help. The hon. Members for Daventry and for Chesterfield queried whether an effect of the pilots might be to encourage people to move on to incapacity benefit. I think that the hon. Member for Daventry suggested that that might even be the advice from Jobcentre Plus staff. That ought not to be the advice. However, both hon. Gentlemen alluded to the fact that it may be appropriate in some cases. Part of the process involves a genuine assessment of the benefits that an individual is receiving and their appropriateness. There was some evidence. We have the findings from the analysis of the new deal 25-plus database, which is probably the one to which the hon. Member for Chesterfield referred. There was both a positive effect of an increased movement into work for 50-plus clients—so we know that there is some benefit in that respect—and what might be called a negative effect, although it may not necessarily be one, of increased movement to other benefits. So, yes, there is some sight of that. It just means that those people fall into a different group of our customers, whom we regard as equally hard to help. We then want to find other ways of support to help them back into work. Mr. Boswell: I do not think that there is much between the Minister and me on the matter and I am not seeking to make a distinction, but the way I construe her remarks, and I would be grateful for her confirmation, is that Jobcentre Plus offices should operate on the presumption that it is better for people in this age group to be working than on benefits. A wider issue, which obviously cannot be dealt with by the decision maker on-site, is that public policy should be structured so as not to create artificial incentives to go on to benefits, whether incapacity or other, and to be off work. That cannot be dealt with in individual cases, but it is an important policy issue for us collectively to ensure that those perverse incentives are neither signalled locally, nor achieved by accident nationally. Jane Kennedy: The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. The primary focus of Jobcentre Plus is to encourage people who can do so to move into work. We all agree that, clearly, there will be people who will not be able to work and who will therefore need continued state support, but we believe that, where appropriate, individuals should be encouraged to work. On the point about whether the evaluation will consider the effects in that context, I have already said that, in general terms, it will. The evaluation will specifically consider the numbers who move on to IB and there will be qualitative interviews with customers who have gone through that experience to explore whether that was the more appropriate benefit or whether it simply compounded their difficulties in terms of an overall return to work. Paul Holmes: The Minister may be coming to this point and, if so, I apologise. On qualitative research, the right hon. Member for Rother Valley (Mr. Barron) referred to an earlier pilot for the under-25s in which 200 people disappeared because they were told, “We’re going to check up on you and sanction you.” It is too late to do any qualitative research into those people and what happened to them, but presumably, since the pilots are only a year old, we can consider what happens in the case of the three out of 801 people who have been sanctioned. Are there examples where people have been written to, told to come to the compulsory interview and jobseeking programmes, and have then disappeared from benefits? If so, can we try to find out where they go and what happens to them? Jane Kennedy: I do not have the specific answer to the point that the hon. Gentleman raises about whether that has happened and in how many cases. However, my right hon. Friend the Member for Rother Valley made an important point; that also happened as we introduced the pathways to work pilots. There has been a tightening up of the benefits being paid and the number of clients in receipt of those benefits. That is an overall effect, and not a bad one. Just so that the Committee is clear, the number of customers aged 50 to 59 years old mandated to the pilot will be approximately 1,100 a year. We estimate that about 400 will actually participate in the specific provision. We will use the others as a control group for the purposes of comparison, so that the evaluation is as effective as it can be. A database is already in place to record sanction activity on a national basis, not just in the pilots. The data can be evaluated to determine trends in this and other pilots; they will allow monitoring across individual pilots and capture the reasons for and characteristics of sanctions. I know that the hon. Member for Chesterfield will enjoy studying that information as it is published from time to time. Mr. Boswell: I asked the Minister a specific question about the pilot period. My understanding is that it will be two years. Can she confirm that? Jane Kennedy: I beg the hon. Gentleman’s pardon. I can confirm that. The regime in that geographical area will apply for a specific time. Once that has expired, the pilot will end and we will complete a full evaluation of it. Mr. Olner, you chastised the hon. Member for Chesterfield for making party political comments— The Chairman: Order. I did not chastise the hon. Gentleman but I thought that he was going wide of the regulations. Jane Kennedy: I understand, but the hon. Member for Chesterfield did say that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Wales had misrepresented the position of his party, which he then stated. However, I understood what my right hon. Friend said to be accurate. Perhaps I should discuss that with the hon. Gentleman on some other occasion and not go down that route now. The hon. Member for Daventry said that we should not assume that the improvement in the employment rate for the 50 to 59 age group would continue in a labour market that was not as robust. I absolutely agree, and that is precisely why we must sustain the stability and strength of the economy, which has brought about unprecedented low interest rates and unemployment levels— The Chairman: Order. The Minister is using up her time. Jane Kennedy: Thank you, Mr. Olner. That is precisely why we must continue our efforts. I was grateful to hear the hon. Gentleman’s comments about the active labour market that the Government have created as opposed to the much more passive labour market that existed before, in which it was almost a matter of accident whether an individual received the benefits to which they were entitled or found the job that they needed. Mr. Boswell: Briefly and simply for the record, the Minister knows perfectly well that I do not entirely agree with her, not least because I am a proud representative of the Conservative Government who introduced the access to work programme. We should probably declare a draw on this matter fairly soon. Jane Kennedy: I am sure that there will be many opportunities in the not too distant future to debate such issues, and I look forward to them with relish. Finally, laying regulations for the second year of the pilots is essential for us accurately to measure the impact that the pilots are having on the unemployment rate for people in the age group 50 to 59. Any robust evaluation depends on a sufficient number of participants, and we can achieve that only by running the pilots for the full two years as originally intended. I am grateful for the comments that have been made today, and I hope that the Committee will give the regulations a fair wind. Question put and agreed to. Resolved,
PERIOD 50 TO 59 PILOT) (NO. 2) REGULATIONS 2005 Resolved,
Committee rose at fourteen minutes past Three o’clock. |
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