Paul
Rowen: I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second
time. Again,
I shall not press the new clause to a Division, but I think that it is
important, given that we have spent most of our time in Committee
dealing with sanctions, that we deal with other aspects of employment
that ought to be considered in the current climate. I understand what
the Secretary of State said on Second Reading: the recession and the
credit crunch are not reasons for not pressing ahead with reforms.
Nevertheless, speaking on behalf of the Liberal Democrats, I certainly
feel that it
is important that it is demonstrated to people, particularly those many
thousands of people who have recently lost their jobs, that strategies
can be adopted to improve
employment. If
I may again use an international example, given that the Government
have been very good at citing international examples that fit their
agenda, there are four areas in the Wisconsin programme that operates
in the US that deal with unemployed people. The first one is what is in
the Bill: “work for your benefit”. Another is community
service jobs, and a further one is transitions for people who need
specialist help and support.
What is also
included in that programme, but is missing in this Bill, is a system
under which the state subsidises employers to take people into
employment in what are called trial jobs. It is vital that things are
done to get people back into work. Yes, we have considered measures to
encourage people to go into work, but employers also need
encouragement. I know that there has been experimentation through the
city strategy pathfinders and the employment and skills partnerships.
The hon. Member for Warwick and Leamington will remember last
May’s debate, which was initiated by the hon. Member for
Nottingham, North (Mr. Allen), about this issue and the
greater freedoms of the
partnerships. I
am seeking two major changes, although the first relates to a power
that already exists. Local authorities can, when setting contracts,
require as part of the contract that the person who wins it takes
somebody off the unemployment register. In my authority of Rochdale, we
set up a joint partnership board with a couple of employers. A few
weeks ago, they took on their 300th employee who had come off the
unemployment list. Those individuals include 15 people who were made
redundant as a result of the closure of
Woolworths. Although
that power exists, the new clause addresses something that does not and
accepts that someone who is unemployed might need to be retrained if
they are to undertake a job that they may be offered. A few years ago,
when my local authority was renewing all the council houses, people
were taken off the unemployment register. If someone is employed to
become, eventually, a qualified bricklayer, electrician, plumber or
roofer, there is no way that it can be argued that that particular
person will be able to do, from day one, 100 per cent. of what can be
done by a qualified person with several years’ experience. The
ability to passport benefits would represent a payment to the employer.
There would be a recognition that it was a training allowance for an
employer taking someone off the unemployment
register. I
have spoken to employers in my town who would be willing to take this
on board. Indeed, Camden borough council operated a similar scheme
under a contract with a company. We think that such a proposal is a
good way of encouraging both employers and unemployed people. It tells
unemployed people that they can learn on the job and that the benefits
that they would have received if they were unemployed would be
passported to the employer as a training allowance. A person could thus
be trained in that particular trade.
In the next
five years, there will be something like £1.5 billion of public
and private expenditure in my local authority, for example through
Building Schools for the Future. The jobs will be not only in
construction, as that contract is over 20 years and involves the
provision of such services as IT and cleaning. There is value in
putting something in the contracts to say that it is a requirement that
somebody is taken off the unemployment register, but that recognises
that that person may not be suitably qualified for a limited period.
I emphasise that it is not the intention that the benefits would be
passported indefinitely. The new clause deliberately states that
regulations will be laid, and there will have to be tight conditions to
ensure that the scheme is not being used by an employer as a means of
getting money off the state without
delivering. The second
part of the proposal deals with something about which there are
particular concerns: many industries are having to offload jobs because
of the recession, which means that we will lose important skills and
abilities. That problem has been raised regarding industries such as
the motor trade and the aerospace industry, as well as other areas in
which there are highly specialised people who taken many years to
train. Employers are having to make certain people redundant because of
a downturn in trade, such as someone who visited my surgery a couple of
weeks ago and is making 13 of 88 employees redundant. I want
to probe whether the Government are willing to consider this
situation. It
could be shown—it would have to be demonstrated by the
employer—that an employee should undergo a period of further
retraining. It might well be that although a person was in the plant
for five days a week, they could spend three days actually working and
two days enhancing their skills and developing new ones so that when
the upturn comes, they will be appropriately skilled up to take
advantage of that. A scheme to allow that would be advantageous
to the company, because there would be no way that it could afford to
provide such training in the current climate. The new clause recognises
that and looks to countries such as Germany, where such an approach is
adopted. We could tell employers that we would do something to help
them to keep people in employment if they could demonstrate that they
were undertaking a retraining process instead of making those people
redundant. 4.45
pm Such
an approach would have a double benefit: it would cost the state no
more than if those people were unemployed, and those people would still
be in work and drawing a wage for the remaining part of the week, and
so would be paying taxes on those wages. In the current circumstances,
that would be a win-win-win situation. There would be a win for the
employee, because they would not be unemployed and their skills would
be enhanced, and there would be a win for the company, because it would
be allowed to undertake reskilling that it would not otherwise be able
to afford in the current climate. Additionally, there would be a win
for the country, because instead of losing vital skills in some
sectors, we would be guaranteeing that we would still have engineers
and qualified people in the future, because if those people went
abroad, or we otherwise lost them, we would be in dire
straits.
I reiterate
that I do not intend to press the new clause to a Division. I merely
wanted to put on record that the Liberal Democrats were serious about
dealing not only with “work for your benefit”, but about
protecting employment and ensuring that companies and employees are
able to ride out the recession.
Mr.
McNulty: I appreciate the spirit of the new clause. If I
were being churlish, I could rip virtually every provision apart,
because it is wanting in many ways, but given the spirit in which it
was tabled, I will not do so.
There are
strong arguments for wage subsidy—indeed, we have had it in the
new deal for the past 10 years. However, I am troubled by the fact that
the new clause would kick in only after 18 months of longer term
unemployment. The hon. Gentleman will know that, in our last series of
announcements, we announced the introduction of a package, from April,
that will include a £2,500 mixture of employer subsidy and
training for companies that take on someone who has been unemployed for
six months. Why the delay? It is precisely because of some of the
problems with the new clause, such as resisting duplication and
dead-weight costs. That is a horrible phrase, but we want to resist
those costs. We also want to avoid the perverse notion, which is
problematic in any subsidy system, that people can sack a worker to
take on someone else.
The issue
involves all sorts of details and complexities, but the notion that we
should not deal with it at all is wrong. We can and do, as I have said,
have a more focused use of Train to Gain—through the new deal,
the new package that we are introducing in April, and our work with
colleagues in the Department for Innovation, Universities and
Skills—to achieve some of what the hon. Gentleman has suggested,
such as keeping people in work, including in skilled jobs, and having
additional training facilities. In motor car plants, for example, where
the work force are on short time, Train to Gain has gone in to see what
it can do to help with skills and training, and to preserve the skills
base. The hon. Gentleman is right to raise this issue, because we do
not want to come out of this recession having to look for the very
skills base that were so dissipated in the past two recessions, and
finding that those people simply were not around, leaving us having to
skill people up again. That would not be appropriate.
I agree with
the thrust and sentiment of what the hon. Gentleman said, but we have
to be clear that subsidies are short term—the new clause is very
open-ended—and, secondly, that they are precisely focused on the
longer term unemployed, potentially through particular skills
bases. I
will be candid and say that there is still a huge debate across
Government about whether we should introduce blanket wage subsidy
schemes in areas such as the motor trade. We think that there is a
great deal of job substitution, duplication and other things going on
in some of the European models—in Germany’s and
France’s, in particular. If we were to go down that road, we
would work much more around retention schemes that focus on training
and skills interventions to skill up the work force while they are
still in
place. I
appreciate that Wisconsin is in the US—that is a perfectly fair
point—but, although I am au fait and happy with the notion that
we should not take job subsidies off the table as an element in our
arsenal to equip us for responding to the downturn, for all the reasons
that the hon. Gentleman suggested, including holding on to the skills
base, I believe, on balance, that the new clause should be resisted,
albeit for reasons that I have resisted giving because of the spirit in
which the
hon. Gentleman opened the debate. However, I do not doubt that we will
regularly return to this issue if the downturn
endures. If
the hon. Gentleman has not done so already, I commend him to look in
detail at the golden hellos and all the other bits in the package that
we are introducing in April for the six-months unemployed. They will
help and, I hope, obviate the need for a subsequent package for those
at 18 months, as is suggested in the new clause, which I ask the hon.
Gentleman to
withdraw.
Paul
Rowen: I am happy to withdraw the new clause because, as I
said, its purpose was to stimulate discussion. I was interested by the
Minister’s comment about six months, because, at present, no
advice is given until at least 12 months. I am interested in how six
months will fit in with current departmental policies. I beg to ask
leave to withdraw the
motion. Clause,
by leave,
withdrawn.
Mr.
McNulty: I beg to move,
That certain
written evidence already reported to the House be appended to the
proceedings of the
Committee. With
your indulgence, Mr. Amess, I shall try to wind things up. I
thank your good self—in body and in spirit—for your
excellent chairmanship, and ask you to convey our thanks in the same
terms to Mr. Hood. You both used a light touch and were good
humoured, as Chairmen should be, for which we have been grateful. There
was, from both of you, that gentle menace that suggested that, were we
to step out of line, you would pull out the full panoply of
Chairmen’s powers, but of course we did not step out of line. I
was pleased to serve under your chairmanship, Mr. Amess, and
that of Mr.
Hood. I
am grateful to the hon. Members for Forest of Dean and for Hertsmere,
not simply for their presence—how would we have coped without
them?—but, equally, for dealing with our business in a focused,
professional manner that afforded the Committee a good deal of sharp
debate about important issues. Our proceedings have been relatively
free of partisanship and carried out in good humour and good
spirit. It
would be remiss not to thank the hon. Members for Henley and for
Billericay and the right hon. Member for Hitchin and Harpenden for
saying as little as possible and not getting in the way of our
deliberations—I mean that most sincerely. The hon. Member for
Billericay, of course, is a Whip, so we would expect him to say very
little, but it would have been rather nice if he had popped in every
now and then. However, he is in the room now, for which I am grateful.
We welcome ghosts, whichever side of the Committee they are
on. I
am happy to put on record that I am enormously indebted to the
Under-Secretaries of State for Work and Pensions, my hon. Friends the
Members for Burnley and for Chatham and Aylesford, and my hon. Friend
the Under-Secretary of State for Scotland for their contributions.
Although the Committee was top-heavy with Ministers—I am not
referring to my own spherical status—I am sure that hon. Members
will agree that all Ministers made a significant contribution and that
ministerial inputs were apportioned appropriately, if that is the
correct phrase. I am grateful to my colleagues for the spirit and
manner in which they contributed to the good order throughout the
sittings.
I am
enormously indebted to my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington, North
for whipping lightly, but with gentle menace when required. I am
equally grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Ochil and South
Perthshire. One of the meetings coming out of our deliberations is a
discussion with the repetitive strain injury group to talk about the
serious matter of RSI. Hopefully, my hon. Friend has not got that from
throwing the advice and inspiration that we get from officials. I thank
those officials for their endeavours, along with the Doorkeepers and
the police—I do not think that we troubled them from their
slumber too much having had only about two
Divisions. I
congratulate my hon. Friends the Members for Sheffield, Heeley, for
Warwick and Leamington and for Glasgow, North-West on their significant
and positive contributions, which guided the ministerial team and the
Committee. I especially congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for
Glasgow, North-West, who tabled some challenging amendments—we
will come back with at least two or three in some form. He, too, is a
brooding presence with some gentle menace—hon. Members might see
a theme emerging in my
thanks. I
am also grateful to the hon. Member for Rochdale for his contributions
to our deliberations, many of which were put forward productively,
although perhaps he started off a bit slowly. He has given me a brand
new definition of a probing amendment: one where the clause is wrong,
the amendment is wrong and the wrong thing entirely is talked about. If
one is told so in no uncertain terms by the Minister, it becomes a
probing
amendment. I
was a little disappointed by the contribution of the hon. Member for
Glasgow, East, whose rants were rather partisan. His new clauses were
fatuous and vacuous, as would be expected from the Scottish National
party. I am disappointed because he comes from one of the poorest
communities in the country. One would have thought that the welfare
reform agenda would be right up the street of the people of Glasgow.
Happily for us, Glasgow has been more than adequately represented by my
hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, North-West and the Under-Secretary
of State for
Scotland. This
Bill covers important subjects that will matter to our communities and
individuals up and down the country. I commend it to the Committee, and
I seriously commend the Committee for its deliberations. Even though
not many amendments, if any, were endorsed, we will reflect on the
Committee proceedings. The Bill will be served well by the
contributions of most Committee
members. Mr.
James Clappison (Hertsmere) (Con): I join the Minister in
many, although not all, of his sentiments. I certainly agree with all
the sentiments that he expressed to the Chairmen of the Committee. We
are extremely grateful to you, Mr. Amess, and to your
colleague, Mr. Hood, for the manner in which the Committee
has been chaired, both in our deliberative sittings and evidence
sessions. As the Minister rightly said, the Committee has been
conducted in a good humoured and appropriate manner due to the skilled
chairmanship of you and your colleague. I join the Minister in the
thanks that he extended to everybody else who helped the Committee to
perform in an expeditious way, including the Clerk, the Hansard
writers, the Doorkeepers and the police officers.
I am very
grateful to colleagues in my party. I thank my hon. Friend the Member
for Forest of Dean for his hard work, his telling analysis of the Bill
and his excellent contributions. I am grateful to our Whip, my hon.
Friend the Member for Billericay, for the extremely efficient role that
he has played. I am also grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for
Henley and my right hon. Friend the Member for Hitchin and Harpenden
for bringing their wisdom to bear on these
proceedings.
5
pm Since
we are being consensual, I reciprocate the spirit of the Minister for
Employment and Welfare Reform by congratulating him and his ministerial
team. I also congratulate Labour Back Benchers on their contributions,
as well as the hon. Member for Rochdale, who speaks for the Liberal
Democrats, and the hon. Member for Glasgow, East, who speaks for the
Scottish Nationalists—I want to be all-inclusive in this
atmosphere. If there was an element of tenderness at the beginning of
the Minister’s contribution a moment ago, I would like to
continue with that, although perhaps not all the remarks at the end of
his contribution were made in that respect.
I certainly
think that the Committee has been conducted appropriately, and we are
pleased to have had the opportunity to examine the Bill and to do
justice to the process of parliamentary scrutiny, which is our duty. We
feel that we have done that fully. As the Minister rightly said, the
subject matter of the Bill is important, particularly at present. We
have been conscious throughout our proceedings of what is unfolding in
the country at large. As this part of the Bill’s passage reaches
its conclusion, we look forward to further analysis and
scrutiny.
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