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Unemployment

8. Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab): What steps his Department is taking to assist unemployed people over 50 back into work. [57324]

The Minister for Employment and Welfare Reform (Margaret Hodge): New deal 50-plus provides help and support for people aged 50 and over who have been out of work for six months or more. That successful programme has helped more than 150,000 people into jobs and, as a result, we have helped to increase the employment rate for older workers to more than 70 per cent. Older workers who take up employment can also receive financial support through the 50-plus element of the working tax credit. We have also set out a number of further proposals designed to help older jobseekers into work in our welfare reform Green Paper.
 
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Helen Goodman: I am grateful to the Minister for her response. This is a problem that I have to address in my constituency surgeries from time to time. It is a problem when people are not just capable of working, but enthusiastic about it. Will she explain what the Government are doing to combat age discrimination in the workplace?

Margaret Hodge: The Government have introduced legislation. I think that regulations were laid before the House last week to take further our steps to combat age discrimination. If they are approved by the House, they will come into force this October. We also run a range of campaigns, from the age positive campaign, for which the Department for Work and Pensions has responsibility, to a campaign that we run in partnership with all stakeholders—trade unions, businesses and particular interest groups—to ensure that employers recognise the benefits of employing older workers.

Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con): Who gives advice to people over 50 about those various schemes? Jobcentre Plus in Bicester has closed altogether. Jobcentre Plus in Banbury seems to have become a call centre somewhere in Hampshire that no one can get through to. It is all very well having such schemes, but it is no good if no one knows about them. In days gone by, the jobcentre did two things: it gave people advice on benefits and helped them into work. Jobcentre Plus no longer seems to perform that second function of helping people into work. If the Minister is simply relying on newspaper campaigns, such things are not going to work.

Margaret Hodge: I am happy to correspond with and talk to the hon. Gentleman about the problems that his constituents are experiencing, but I do not recognise the picture that he paints. Jobcentre Plus innovatively brings together support and access to benefits with advice for employment. People access that advice in a variety of ways. Some will access it through the internet and the telephone and those sorts of mechanisms, hence the development of a number of call centres that people can ring. Others will access it by walking into their local Jobcentre Plus office.

In pursuing efficiency, which I hope the hon. Gentleman supports, we have ensured that our network of offices is such that everybody can access an office within a reasonable distance. It is better that we put our money not into offices but into advisers, who are there and capable of helping people. We are also providing outreach services in places such as local town halls and libraries to support people if they want advice about getting back into work.

Keith Vaz (Leicester, East) (Lab): May I congratulate my right hon. Friend on last year reaching the Lisbon agenda target for older workers in employment? The Government reached that target six years before they should have done. However, one of the main issues is how we will ensure that older workers can be retrained in new technologies. The challenge of globalisation is to use the full potential of those workers for the benefit of the country as a whole.
 
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Margaret Hodge: I thank my hon. Friend for his congratulations. Our record on getting people into work is now the best not only among many of our European colleagues, but among any of the G8 countries. He is right to draw the attention of the House to ensuring that older workers get skills in new technology. So far, to be honest with him, the training grant available in the new deal 50-plus has not been effective in attracting older workers to undertake further training. We are therefore talking to our colleagues in the Department for Education and Skills to find out whether we can better reach older people through the new deal for skills so that they can take up the skills that will enable them to stay in work, or return to work.

Carers

9. Mr. Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con): What steps his Department has taken to support carers of people with disabilities through the benefits system. [57325]

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Mrs. Anne McGuire): Depending on their personal circumstances, carers have access to the full range of social security benefits. Those who provide regular and substantial care for at least 35 hours a week for a severely disabled person receiving attendance allowance, or the highest or middle rate of the disability living allowance care component, can be entitled to carer's allowance and, if on a low income, to the carer's premium in income-related benefits such as income support, housing benefit and council tax benefit, or the carer's additional amount in the pension credit.

Mr. Bone: Does the Minister agree that respite care is both important for carers and cost-effective? Will she consider making respite care a statutory responsibility for local authorities?

Mrs. McGuire: I suspect that that might fall under the responsibility of the Department of Health, but, across Government, we are constantly looking at how we can improve the lot of carers. The Government have a proud record of trying to improve the situation of carers, not least by ensuring that women—they are mainly women—who look after people are entitled to class 1 national insurance. We have increased the earnings limit and are constantly seeking ways in which we can help carers who undertake substantial work on behalf of the whole community.

Miss Anne Begg (Aberdeen, South) (Lab): Will my hon. Friend examine the level of the carer's allowance? On Friday, I met a constituent who looks after a severely disabled daughter. The money that the daughter receives through the disability living allowance goes to buy in respite and extra care, but the mother still spends a lot of time looking after her daughter, so obviously the main household income is the carer's allowance. That is really not a supplement to what someone who was in full-time work would get.

Mrs. McGuire: I fear that my answer might be a bit disappointing to my hon. Friend inasmuch as we are not looking at increasing the level of the carer's allowance.
 
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However, we must realise that that allowance can be supplemented by accessing other benefits. We are constantly working with the representatives of carers organisations and carers to examine ways in which we can improve the general support network for carers, several of which have already been indicated, and I hope that in the circumstances that my hon. Friend has highlighted her constituent would be able to look for other ways in which she could, as an individual, increase her income.

Mr. Jeremy Hunt (South-West Surrey) (Con): Given the vital role that the parents of severely disabled children play as carers, is the Minister worried that, according to a Mencap survey, 37 per cent. of such families have to deal with eight or more professionals from different services? Will she considering introducing a simpler system similar to that used in parts of Austria whereby families can be assessed and supported by a single integrated mobile support unit consisting of child doctors, physiotherapists, psychologists and information specialists, thus greatly reducing both bureaucracy and stress?

Mrs. McGuire: I welcome the hon. Gentleman to the Dispatch Box for his first contribution. I see that his Front-Bench colleagues also welcome him. The Austrian experience is particular to the Austrian environment, and I am always reluctant to assume that one can necessarily import a system from another country, because circumstances are different. The hon. Gentleman knows, I trust, that the Government are examining ways in which we can provide joined-up support for disabled people and reviewing our policies across the piece, to try to break down some of the silos created by local and national Government. That is why we have established the Office for Disability Issues, and why the Prime Minister's strategy unit report, which recommended a more cohesive and coherent approach to support for disabled people—children and adults—was so widely welcomed among the disability lobby.

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