| Previous Section | Index | Home Page |
9 Mar 2010 : Column 56WH—continued
I consulted my constituents before working on this speech, and a number expressed concern that there had not been a sufficiently large push for female employment. Some suggested that the ODA should hold women-only
recruitment days, which to my knowledge has not been tried. Others suggested a particular push on training women to do traditionally male jobs. A number of people suggested having better child care on the site, and another suggestion, which I hope that Ministers would welcome, was to have an equal pay audit on the site to examine the pay differentials between men and women. I have mentioned several of the targets set by the ODA mainly to show that it does not meet some of its own targets, and the number of female employees is one example of that. None the less, I feel that the targets lack ambition, for example the ODA's target on employing local workers of only 15 per cent.
I will move on to another important issue. Overall, the figures for the number of local people employed on the Olympic park are poor and disappointing, and the low proportion of local young people who have found positions as apprentices on the Olympic site is a scandal. When it comes to skilled workers, it could be argued that there might be a skills gap in some of the Olympic boroughs. There has been a lot of talk and action on training, but when it comes to apprenticeships, the skills gap argument does not apply. Young people are brought in and trained, and the figures that I have seen on the number of proper construction apprenticeships on the Olympic site show that, overall, 37 per cent. of apprentices on the Olympic site come from the Olympic boroughs. However, when it comes to Hackney, there is a handful of young people, and I do not think that that is acceptable. It is unacceptable to argue that there should be the same proportion of apprenticeships as of people doing fully-skilled jobs, because it is so much easier to recruit apprentices locally than skilled men. In Hackney, the ODA has not even met its target, which is a betrayal of the young people of the east end.
I understand that there are currently 150 apprentices working on the site. The target was supposed to be 350, but it seems unlikely that the ODA will meet it because it takes three years to train a construction apprentice and there are only 18 to 20 months of building work left on the site. Popular media sources point out that each apprentice on the Olympic site has cost the taxpayer millions of pounds. If we are going to invest that much money in apprentices, why do we not target some of the most deprived young people in the country-those of the east end and the Olympic boroughs? Some suggest that the problem is that young people are not interested in construction, but wherever I go in Hackney, young people ask about the possibility of finding jobs on the Olympic park.
My constituent, Geoff Joab, lives one mile away from the Olympic park in Stoke Newington. He has all the necessary construction skills needed for a job on the park, and one would expect him to be able to get work. He is now in his fourth month of unemployment, despite having signed up for job brokerage nearly two years ago. After calling and calling On Site, his brokerage service, and being told that there was no job for him, he found that it had lost his file and he has had to start over again. My constituents come to me with such experiences time after time. I regard what is being done-albeit often by very nice people-by the brokerage companies in terms of outturn with some scepticism. As I said earlier, the problem lies partly with those construction companies that move established sub-contractors to the Olympic site rather than employing new staff.
I have been fortunate over the past week to attend events with young Hackney people. I attended the annual award ceremony at Hackney community college, which had a theme based around the values of the Olympics. The young people receiving the awards that night embodied those principles of determination, integrity and friendship. However, I was surprised when the principal of the college voiced concerns about having to make cuts in his construction course. On the one hand, the ODA tells me that people in the east end of London do not have the skills, while on the other hand, local colleges are being forced to cut proper construction courses. It is as if one hand does not know what the other is doing about regeneration and employment on the Olympic park.
I also met three female graduates of the construction programme this week. Kelly Drake, Alannah Bascombe and Janine Griffiths are among the 9,000 working on the site. They are waving the banner not only for Hackney, but for female workers. Much more needs to be done if other students are to follow in their footsteps.
I have also met half a dozen young Olympic legacy champions from Hackney community college and BSix college in Stoke Newington. Those students are picked from nine colleges in the five Olympic boroughs. They put themselves forward as candidates and they are tasked with promoting the Olympics among young people. What issue did they raise with me? Jobs. Even though they are the so-called legacy champions, they, too, did not understand how they would benefit in practical ways, such as through jobs.
I shall briefly set out several issues that my constituents raised when I asked them what I should say in this debate-perhaps the Minister can write to me about them. First, they are very concerned about the need for affordable housing in the east end, so they want to know whether Olympic village property will be available for first-time buyers. Secondly, how many local market traders-this is a big issue in Hackney-will be trained up and supported to populate the section of the park designed for local suppliers of goods? Thirdly, how soon after the Olympics are over will the park be made available to the public? Additionally, my constituents are concerned about increased surveillance in the park.
Even 18 months before the construction phase closes, there are practical things that the Government can do so that my young people, in particular, can access the apprenticeships that they deserve and so that my skilled men can have some hope of getting the jobs that they are trained for and anxious to do. We need to set targets for the contractors on a minimum quota of local people and to consider whether more money is needed, perhaps through a training levy.
We need to improve and upgrade the statistics that the ODA is producing, including on job brokerages putting people into jobs on the Olympic site. When I visited my local job brokerage, I was told, after a bit of humming and hawing, that the figures were for the total number of people it was putting into jobs, not just those on the Olympic site, so the figures are lower than they might seem. The ODA needs to look at how it ascertains whether people are truly local-perhaps by asking where people went to school-and it should have more challenging targets.
I have been raising this subject in private and in public, and on the Floor of the House and in Committee Rooms, for two years. I have raised it with such persistence because I believe that this sort of opportunity will not come again. The low number of Hackney people on the Olympic site is a scandal, and it is not even commensurate with any supposed skills gap among Hackney people. In particular, there is the issue of the handful of Hackney's young people who have managed to get apprenticeships. Apprenticeships can mean a great deal for precisely the type of young people whom I met at Hackney community college and BSix college.
The low levels of local employment and the pathetically low levels of Hackney people with apprenticeships mean that, even with all the other issues that the Minister has to consider on the Olympics, we must once again focus on employment. When the Olympics are over, and the circus, noise, glamour and international attention has passed by, we need to ensure that local people can see that they have gained something and are not being left to slide back into hopelessness and unemployment.
1.23 pm
The Minister for the Olympics (Tessa Jowell): I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney, North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott) on securing the debate. Like other Members who represent the five Olympic boroughs, she has been a passionate champion of the people whom she represents and, particularly, of opportunities to improve the employment prospects of young people.
I listened carefully to my hon. Friend and I would like to say two or three things in the short time available. She should not for one moment doubt the commitment and determination of the ODA, the Government Olympic Executive, this Minister and all those associated with the development of the great Olympic project that the young people whom she represents, and about whom she is so concerned, should have prospects for a better future, long-term employment and skilled jobs as a result of the Olympics. That is important in the context of 40 per cent. of the working-age population of the five boroughs being unemployed, and of 25 per cent. of the population of the host borough having no educational qualifications at all. It was precisely because of that level of deprivation that it was decided that, if we won the right to hold the Olympics, we would host them in east London to secure two legacy ambitions: first, a general ambition about sport and young people; and, secondly, the very specific ambition for the regeneration of east London.
The regeneration involves both a hard and a soft legacy. My hon. Friend saw the hard legacy this morning,
as does every person who visits the park, but the second aspect is the soft legacy, which will enable us to look back after the Olympics and say, "Hosting the Olympic and Paralympic games changed the economy of those five boroughs and the opportunities available to the people who live there." My hon. Friend is absolutely right that there is a degree of sacrifice for local people living in the five boroughs, and we owe it to them to ensure that their upheaval is worth while.
It is in the DNA of the ODA to make sure that employment opportunities and local employment are maximised, while being highly purposeful in ensuring that contracts go to the whole country. As has been evidenced, apprentices have been recruited-three and a half times the industry average-and most will complete their training by 2012.
There will also be a legacy of training. The skills academy-it was called the digger school-which has now relocated to Beckton, will continue to train apprentices after the Olympics, thus ensuring that the face of the construction industry begins to change. My hon. Friend and I are absolutely as one that the future face of the construction industry should be more female.
The ODA's overriding responsibility is to deliver the games on time and on budget. Much of the work force, as my hon. Friend rightly said, is brought in by contractors from other parts of the country that are equally affected by the impact of the economic downturn. Across the country, the Olympics are either creating or maintaining levels of employment, but that is the tension. We have a construction project, but given the level of public investment and the commitment of the Government, the five boroughs and Members of Parliament, it also has an important employment objective.
My hon. Friend referred to the targets. I would resile from setting targets and prefer to rely on the ambitious benchmarks that the ODA has already set for local employment, the number of apprenticeships and the employment of women and disabled people. She made specific points about the profile of the 2,700 people working on the Olympic village. I see no reason why those figures cannot be published, so I undertake to ensure that they are.
The job brokerage service that is run by the five boroughs gives greatest priority to unemployed people living locally, and that is the means by which some 750 people have found work in the park. The process is a combination of feeding the demand for labour arising from the construction of the park and changing the nature of labour supply through our investment in apprenticeships and skills. I am encouraged by the proactive outreach initiatives adopted by the ODA, and I think that they will begin to change the number of apprentices over the next six months and give my hon. Friend a better story to tell the young people whom she represents.
Passenger Safety (Railway Platforms)
1.30 pm
Mr. Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford and Woodford Green) (Con): I am enormously pleased to have been here for the last bit of the previous debate, because mine is one of the boroughs concerned. I congratulate the hon. Member for Hackney, North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott) on having secured the debate and I was keen to hear the Minister's response. I hope that the Minister will let us have all the pages of her response that she was not able to get to, because I would love to see them.
I am also enormously pleased to be here to raise yet again the tragic death of my constituent Simon Slade. I say that because it is not often that we have an opportunity to raise such an issue again. The issue was brought forward by his parents, Jean and George Slade, who have been trying for some time to obtain some form of redress. The Minister who will respond to the debate is not the same Minister who responded before, so let me say from the outset that there should be no doubt about the fact that they are not seeking a financial settlement for themselves. Through their good efforts, they are seeking a way to ensure that such a tragedy is not, or at least has far less chance of being, visited on anybody else.
The Minister will have had the opportunity to read the previous debate and he will be wondering what points we may be trying to raise this time around. However, it is worth looking at his predecessor's response, because Simon's parents have been stalled far too often since the previous debate in their discussions and in their attempts to change the rules for train dispatch and risk assessments. It is important that we bear that in mind.
Let me quickly remind hon. Members why I am here. Simon died just before midnight on 11 January 2007, after he fell between the platform at Gidea Park station and the outgoing train. Worse, he was then left on the tracks for a further 50 minutes, during which time a further three-I stress three-trains came through before he was eventually found.
It was made clear during the coroner's inquiry that, on the night that Simon died, the train dispatcher at Gidea Park, having signalled to the driver of the train that he could leave, was so intent on returning to his cabin as quickly as possible that he did not stop to take cognisance of what was happening to passengers on and around the station platform. No matter what anybody says, it is clear from all the evidence-common sense dictates this-that had he stayed even a little longer and watched the train leave, he would most likely have seen Simon fall.
In the subsequent investigation and inquest, the train dispatcher's actions were excused by the fact-this is the most ludicrous part of all-that dispatchers are not obliged to watch trains leave the station. I must say that that was news to me when I came to this case, because I thought that common sense dictated that they were. My experience with good dispatchers made me believe that all dispatchers do that, but they do not, and nor are they required to do so. It is ironic that when the inquest jury and the coroner went to look at Gidea Park station, the same train dispatcher took special care to
watch the train arrive and leave the station, even telling members of the jury to stand back as the train approached and left.
Since Simon's death, his parents have tried in a remarkable way to uncover how the accident came to happen in the light of health and safety rail standards. Above all, they have campaigned in a remarkable way for a change in the rules governing the activities of train dispatchers and for regular risk assessments to prevent such accidents from happening again. To that end, the coroner in the original case agreed with them when he recommended in 2008 that the rule book should be changed to reflect such concerns and failures. In a letter to the Rail Safety and Standards Board, he stated fairly clearly:
"It would seem to me that the training of train dispatchers should still stress the need to observe all trains until they have completely cleared the station, and that this tragic accident could be cited in the training course to emphasise how important this might be."
However, in a rather complacent response, the rail accident investigation branch stated-this is really just a statement of the facts-that the train dispatcher is not required to watch trains leave the station. The RAIB does not believe that the dispatcher had any particular responsibility for the people on the platform that evening, despite the fact that the dispatcher subsequently behaved with great care, as I said, when the coroner and inquest jury were on the platform. Clearly, the dispatcher had some sense that they needed to behave in a particular way, even if it was not at the time of the dreadful accident.
I remind hon. Members that as a result of the train dispatcher's not being required to watch the train leave the station, Simon lay on the track for a further 50 minutes and a further three trains went through the station before he was eventually found. Had the dispatcher spent even an extra minute in between trains walking along, or revisiting, the platform, he would most likely have heard Simon groaning, sadly, from the tracks. It is impossible to know for sure, but, who knows, Simon may well have been saved.
The rule book should therefore be changed so that train dispatchers are required to watch the train leave the station. The coroner agreed and said that the RSSB should
"give consideration to amending the Rule Book Issue 1: Station Duties and Train Dispatch to give additional force to this duty of observing the train throughout its passage through the station."
However, in a subsequent letter to the Slades, the RAIB, having started by blaming their son, which is pretty ridiculous, stated:
"Bearing in mind that in all the above cases, the behaviour of your son was not that which one normally expects, changing the duties of dispatchers or making substantial changes to platform designs, which would involve major costs, is most unlikely to meet the test of reasonable practicability and would go beyond the duty that train operators owe to their customers."
I am not quite sure what the RAIB means when it suggests that Simon's behaviour
"was not that which one normally expects".
As I have said before, we encourage people who have had an evening out not to drive, but to use public transport. What exactly is the behaviour that one would expect? Simon was running along the platform at one stage, and that is not what one would expect. I have seen plenty of people run along platforms, and they should
be told not to. None the less, they do, so the idea that passengers adhere to a set code of behaviour at all times is ludicrous. That is the whole reason why we need somebody on the platform to make sure that people understand the nature of the danger.
It is not true that placing a requirement on train dispatchers to watch the train leave the station
| Next Section | Index | Home Page |