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The evidence for pathways was mentioned, specifically that it does not work for people over 50. As the noble Countess said, it is true that the evidence shows that
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I was asked what safeguards will be built into the progression-to-work system to protect the needs of people over 50. When agreeing work-related activity or issuing customers with a direction to undertake specific work-related activities, personal advisers must have regard to what would be reasonable in the customer’s circumstances. That would include taking into consideration any relevant factors connected with the customer’s age. If the customer feels that the requirement on him is unreasonable, he will be able to request that it is reconsidered under the provisions for reconsideration of an action plan. That is Section 14(4) of the Welfare Reform Act 2007.
If the customer fails to undertake the activity, he will be asked whether he can show good cause for that before a sanction is considered. We are setting out good-cause considerations in regulations. Evidence of good cause may include demonstrating that the conclusions from the work-focused health-related assessment or work-focused interview which led to a direction had not been or were no longer appropriate or relevant to the claimant’s circumstances. If the claimant is sanctioned for failing to undertake the activity, he will be able to appeal the decision to sanction.
We are committed to increasing employment opportunities for older workers. Our programme of research is designed to help us to build further on our support and to share good practice across providers of our back-to-work support.
The noble Baroness, Lady Afshar, asked about older workers who cannot speak English. That is a very important point. I would like to write to her in some detail about what should be available at Jobcentre Plus. Certainly there is support for translation and the right to have someone attend an interview with you. With the information I have available, I do not think I can do justice to the support that should be available. In those circumstances, we always need to seek to ensure that it is delivered in a manner in which it is meant to be delivered.
My noble friend Lady Turner referred to the default retirement age, a debate which runs on. She will be aware that we are committed to review that in 2011. One can see the benefits of it being extinguished. Many employers do not operate it anyway—in particular, I am pleased to say, the DWP.
The noble Baroness, Lady Howe, made the key point that we all have to work longer. On pensions, we have debated what has happened to longevity and to
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The noble Lord, Lord Skelmersdale, referred to age discrimination. It is absolutely right that we should do everything that we can to challenge discrimination on any grounds and certainly on the ground of age. We believe that it is important that older workers get the help and support that they need to enable them to return to work. I hope that, having heard the explanation, the noble Countess will feel able to withdraw her amendment.
Another key point is the training given to Jobcentre Plus advisers. That issue will run through many of the debates in Committee and perhaps we shall have an opportunity to focus on that in more detail later. It is certainly an important point.
The Countess of Mar: I am very grateful to noble Lords who took part in the debate and for the support for my amendment. The noble Baroness, Lady Thomas, stressed the increase in the numbers of those over 50 who have become unemployed in recent months since the recession began. The noble Baroness, Lady Turner, confirmed my feelings about the need for more research. I was pleased to hear the Minister say that they are doing constant research. If he could let me know, in a letter, the type of research being done I would be very grateful. As the Minister said, the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, raised very valid points.
The noble Lord, Lord Skelmersdale, puzzled me, but perhaps we do not have the rapport that we should have because he thought I did not support him fully in his amendment, but I do. He mentioned reskilling, with which there is a problem. I am concerned that the system is unable to cope. There are not enough properly trained people to deal with the over-50s and understand the man who has worked for a motor-car factory for 30 years and suddenly finds himself, with very little notice, out of work. He might stand at the factory gate with a television interviewer with a microphone in his hand and say, “I have done this for 30 years and I do not know what I am going to do”. That must be very distressing for him and all the people around him. There is a real need for people who understand the pressures that these people are under.
I thought that the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, suggested a very bright idea. The Minister did not respond to it, but it would be nice and very helpful if he could take it on board and think about it. The Minister talked about equality and I would talk also about fairness. Employers are taking a long time to catch up with Her Majesty’s Government. They do not seem to observe the age discrimination rules as they should. Far too many people have been turned down for employment or even sacked simply because they are aged over 50 and are extra to the employer’s needs. Most of these people want to be in work and want to stay in work. I am not asking for them to be left out so that they can slack about and do nothing on benefits. The conditionality must be coupled with support, which is not always there, and is what I tried to stress.
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More important than anything is the availability of work, which is scarce. It is not available and to put pressures on people when they cannot get a job is unfair.
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Lord McKenzie of Luton: If the noble Countess will permit me, I should like to speak to two points. Of course the labour market is challenging at the moment, but we should not overlook the fact that there still is a dynamic market. Each month, if we look at the number of people who go on to JSA and those who come off, and look at the vacancies flowing through the system, there is activity in the labour market. I accept her point entirely that, until we get the economy around the corner and growing again, the full range of opportunities that we would like to see will not be available.
The noble Countess is right that I did not respond to my noble friend, which was remiss of me. She is aware that, as regards couples where one or both are disabled, they can access tax credit at 16 hours of work. Otherwise, as she said, it has to be 30 hours of work. In terms of the proposition to combine the position of couples, I would use the escape clause that this is Treasury policy. But it is an interesting idea and worth pursuing. As my noble friend intimated, there would be complexities about how you would join two people for certain bits of the system where they otherwise are taxed individually. There is some complexity in all that, but let us reflect on it.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham: I thank my noble friend.
The Countess of Mar: I thank the Minister for his very full response to my points and I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
3: Clause 1, page 1, line 12, after “circumstances” insert “and claimants which have guaranteed and predictable access to good quality, affordable and flexible childcare which meets the needs of the parents and the child or children in the claimants’ household”
Lord Kirkwood of Kirkhope: Amendment 3 stands in my name and that of my noble friend Lady Thomas. I declare an interest as a non-renumerated, non-executive director of the Wise Group, which is an intermediate labour market provider in the Glasgow area.
This part of the Bill is a dog’s breakfast, which makes it very difficult. I admire the attempt made by the noble Lord, Lord Skelmersdale, to have a debate across this important area at the beginning. It will be difficult for us all to get to the principles of some of this because it is such a piecemeal mess. To introduce a fundamentally new approach to welfare to work by amending the Jobseekers Act 1995 is madness. If the Bill passes, we will have a jobseeker’s allowance that people can claim as long as they do not seek jobs.
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This is also a skeletal Bill, and the regulations that flow from it will therefore be difficult to track. They will deal with pilots which last for up to three years, which is another change that has been made. Pilots used to only be for one year. Indeed, in the Jobseekers Act 1995, pilots were only possible when they assisted people. These pilots actually require people to do things. I notice that there was a little finessing of Section 29 of the 1995 Act that enabled the former pilots. That has been changed so that there is broader access to pilots—or are they pathfinders? I do not know when a pathfinder is a pilot or vice versa; it is difficult to make sense of where the legal authority for pathfinders comes from.
I make the general opening point that we are all going to struggle. I will struggle in a minute, with a little flexibility from colleagues. We need to identify the key areas of the principle of this new policy and find ways of discussing them in spite of the actual sections of the Bill in front of us. Having got that off my chest, I perfectly well understand where we are: this is a new employment programme. Actually, it does not need much legislation because employment programmes, such as new deals and things, have been done in the past using administrative procedures.
Clause 1 is about “work for your benefit” schemes. I also object—I will stop being angry in a minute—to the use of inverted commas to do violence to the English language. As other colleagues have noticed, work, which I understand to be paid employment—a contract between an employer and an employee—is nowhere near this clause. The fees of the parliamentary draftsman who came up with the ingenuity of using inverted commas to make the English language mean something that it does not really say should be deducted. Something should happen to him or her; conditionality should be applied.
I have this in my mind as stage 5 of the Flexible New Deal, where people have been in public service for 12 months and getting assistance, and then go to a provider for specialist provision. They have therefore been out of work for two years and are then considered for “work for your benefit”. There are other routes into it, but that is where we are. We are therefore only dealing with the real jobseeker’s allowance—that of people who really need to seek jobs as well as claim the allowance. I understand that.
I use that context as a proxy for a debate about a much wider, fundamentally important essence of welfare to work. I know this because I have looked at schemes internationally. Indeed, the Gregg review refers, interestingly, to some of the Scandinavian schemes, and particularly those of the Netherlands, where it is a given that universal childcare is available. There is no question about that. Around every corner and in every precinct and community, families have ready access to childcare that is not just about looking after your
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As has been referred to earlier, we all know the difficulties that that system brings in a United Kingdom context. There are four nation states in the United Kingdom. Of course, Professor Gregg’s remit in his report was to look at the situation in England. The English situation is clear and is set out on page 92. I think the 10-year childcare strategy has been developed since he wrote his report. It talks about universal schooling. There is a three and four year-old part which is not there yet but is to be in place by 2010. How safe will it be to fund? I do not have experience of the English education system but the third bullet point in the report states:
“By 2010 all parents with children aged 5-11 will be offered affordable, school based childcare on weekdays between the hours of 8 am and 6 pm all year round”.
I shall believe that when I see it.
Professor Gregg carried out this piece of work before the credit crunch really matured. We are now a nation facing a public sector borrowing requirement of £175 billion. That is the foundation of this policy. If it is not in place, the policy will not work. It goes on to talk about every community having easy access to a Sure Start children's centre by 2010. Some of these provisions have a pie-in-the-sky element to them. This 2008 report was probably written in 2007 and things have moved on.
It is not safe for this Grand Committee to allow the Bill to pass without absolutely cast-iron guarantees and assurances in cold print that what is in Professor Gregg's submission for his policy initiative, written in 2008, will be delivered. This policy will not be implemented unless it is delivered. It is as important as that. I do not think Scotland will be in that position by 2010, so we are in danger of disadvantaging people who live north of the border. There are precedents for delaying important parts of social policy because of the different backup support in other parts of the United Kingdom. The Children (Leaving Care) Act 2000 was delayed by four years in Scotland simply because the backup support and aftercare was not available there. The Government were big enough to recognise that and so it took an extra four years to bring that piece of legislation safely into being north of the border. For all I know, that might well be the case in Northern Ireland and in Wales.
This subject is that important to the successful deployment of this policy. We really need assurances because people are frightened about this policy and I am not surprised because the past experience of conditionality and so on has been dire. Bearing in mind that this will not all be delivered by Jobcentre Plus professional staff, the Government’s response to Gregg said that there will be 9,000 personal advisers. It will be delivered by people like the Wise Group and,
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Professor Gregg is right. On the next amendment I may surprise people by supporting the Government more than they might imagine from the position I am taking now, but the key thing about Gregg is that he gives the claimant the voice, whereas the Bill gives the personal adviser the decision. He is making a decision about children's development in relation to childcare. There should be a balanced negotiation involving some guarantee of control in any decision about whether jobseeking conditions should continue to apply, but it has been left to a personal adviser who may be on a contract. The situation remains opaque, and is set against a background of where this policy has been in the past. I am not surprised that people are really frightened about it.
5.30 pm
Other colleagues have made the point about morality and transport and issues of that kind, which all compound the difficulty of providing childcare sensibly. If people cannot go the distance and find the necessary public transport, that is difficult. This is a crucial area. I do not know how the pilots or pathfinders will work around this. It would be interesting to know if you could find an area that had all the childcare provisions to which Professor Gregg aspires in 2010. You could try this in an area such as that and then try it in a much more challenged area such as rural Wales in the valleys, where transport is difficult, and compare and contrast them. For all I know, these pilots will last for three years.
There is another point that colleagues need to remember. I understand perfectly well about the lack of jobs but Professor Gregg is talking about this policy continuing for 20 years after this recession is over. That is where he is starting and that is the vision that his document contains, if he is to be believed. It will take a long time to get this right, but we cannot safely introduce this policy at all unless childcare is guaranteed. I, for one, am not convinced that that will be the case in 2010, when this legislation is enacted. I beg to move.
Lord Northbourne: I support the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood. I see many things as I go around the country. The other day I visited a children's centre, which shall be nameless, and it was excellent. I asked people there, “How many children do you manage in this nursery school?” They answered that 29 was their maximum. I then embarrassed them by asking how many children of an appropriate age there were in the area that it served. After a certain amount of thought they came up with a figure of 700. I admit that there were two other children’s centres in that area, but I regret to say to the Minister that I think that he is
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Baroness Meacher: I have two amendments coming up later on exactly this subject. It might have been better if they had all come up together. I support the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, because, as other noble Lords have said, the availability of childcare is a major issue. I am unsure about the capacity of personal advisers to make these decisions about what childcare facilities should be accepted by the parent. The parent should have the final decision about whether or not childcare is satisfactory. There are major issues around childcare and I simply wanted to log my support for the concerns already expressed. I will return to these issues later.
The Countess of Mar: As I listened to the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, I suddenly realised the problem of this Bill: the infrastructure is not in place. It is a little like building a whole lot of houses in the middle of a field and not having roads, water supplies, electricity and telephones. I leave it at that.
Baroness Howe of Idlicote: I add my concern about the amount and, of course, quality of childcare available. So many Bills that overlap to a certain extent are currently going through, and this issue also comes up under the Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Bill. Reading the debates in the other place clearly indicates that there is concern about proper use and involvement of the voluntary sector, which for so many years was the only provider of childcare. Because it is relevant to this and the many other Bills that we will no doubt be dashing from one Committee Room to another to try and take part in, I would like to know exactly what the Government think the pool of childcare is, and whether it involves a proper use of those facilities. I personally know that many are closing down as a result of the centres understandably wanting to concentrate their activities in this one area. I would be grateful if the Minister could take that point on board.
Lord Rix: I thoroughly enjoyed the presentation of the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood. When we come to my amendments, I hope that he will support them with as much enthusiasm as that. I add my name to the list of supporters of this amendment.
Baroness Afshar: In York, those who are entitled to have some payment towards their childcare, particularly teachers in primary schools, are not able to access it because they have been told that the firm providing the care would go bankrupt. There is a real problem with decisions and statutory rights, and the delivery thereof.
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Lord Skelmersdale: There is absolutely no doubt that childcare, which the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, will remember came up strongly when we debated the original order on lone parents some two years or 18 months ago—I do not know; it does not matter—is vital to the whole scheme of things. The question is how you deal with it.
In moving the amendment, the noble Lord made an impassioned plea for considering the importance of childcare. This obviously ties in with our opening debate on school-age children when I pointed out the obvious: parents will understandably be reluctant to get involved with any scheme that they might consider to adversely impact upon their children. Many of your Lordships agreed with me, including the noble Countess, Lady Mar; I was listening.
For those parents with children over school age and therefore subject to the new proposals, the availability of childcare is a vital consideration in helping them make decisions about what they feel that they are able to do for themselves: preparing for work, being in work and so on. I may have misunderstood the problem, but I was informed that it was a particular concern in Scotland, where the Childcare Act 2006, which put a duty only on councils in England and Wales to provide sufficient childcare for working parents, does not apply; I am sure that the noble Lord would be the first to comment on whether I am right or wrong. This Bill covers Scotland as well.
I expect that childcare will form a major part of the agreement reached between the adviser and the parent seeking work. Perhaps the Minister will be able to develop this point for us when he responds. What will happen to those parents who need childcare but cannot find any suitable? The Minister has already said this afternoon that, in that case, there will be no need for lone parents to be subject to the rigours of Clause 2. Indeed, that comment was made both in Committee and, I think, on Report in another place.
The important thing is for us to discover how flexible the new provisions will be when taking childcare into account. The Liberal Democrat amendments raise the question of predictable access to childcare. The wording of the amendments is perhaps a little problematic, but I shall come to that in a minute. I am interested to hear the Minister explain how the “work for your benefit” schemes can be applied satisfactorily in cases where access to childcare is available—but they may well change.
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