Sir Stephen Timms
MP for East Ham · Labour · United Kingdom
“I agree with the hon. Gentleman. If he would like to send me details of that particular case, I will happily look into it. On the subject of people with hearing impairments, my right hon. Friend the Minister for Women and Equalities and I will be meeting the British Sign Language Advisory Board this afternoon.”
“Better outcomes require early identification and support for girls and young women with special educational needs, including dyslexia. That is the aim of the SEND reforms and the development of national inclusion standards.”
“Autistic people and people with ADHD have been struggling to get the right support at the right time. Recommendations from Professor Karen Guldberg’s neurodivergence task and finish group directly informed the SEND reforms that were published earlier this year.”
“The Equality Act 2010 places a duty on public bodies to make reasonable adjustments, so that disabled people are not put at a disadvantage by accessibility challenges.”
“The hon. Gentleman raises an important point. This benefit is there to contribute to the additional costs of disability. Too often, what has happened—my hon.”
“I think we can take the hon. Member’s question as a tacit recognition that in 14 years the previous Government should have done something to fix these problems. The steering group is clear that the provision of cash to meet the additional costs of disability is vital.”
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“What I am unsure about is the practical potential for measuring those things across the economy in the way that SNP Members suggest in amendment 106. I will be interested to hear the arguments they make about that. Certainly, that was precisely what some of our witnesses called for, such as Oxfam in its written evidence, but I am not sure how practical it is. Of course, we could also look at issues of equality in work such as whether opportunities are open equally to all and why all too often they are not. Those issues would come under the amendment as well. Coming back to my amendment 1, I hope that the Minister will be able to satisfy us on this question of the definition of full employment that the Government are using.”
“Low pay, low hours, insecure work and the proliferation of zero-hours contracts over the past few years have all undermined the reliability of work as a way out of poverty. Oxfam’s evidence to the Committee makes the point that “people place high value on satisfying, secure and suitable work as well as jobs which provide a sufficient income”. The concept of decent work has been debated in recent years. It has been defined by the International Labour Organisation, the Adam Smith Institute and others as including “fair pay, job security, mental health, recognition of overtime, work-life balance, job satisfaction and autonomy, safety, achievable work, skills development, and effective management”.”
“Specifically, one of the significant trends underneath the long term picture of jobs growth over the past five years has been the increase in self-employment, especially part-time self-employment.” We know—we discussed this with our witnesses as well—that a significant majority of almost two thirds of children living in poverty are now living in a household where somebody is in employment. Julia Unwin suggested today that the report that clause 1 requires ought to say something about progression in work as well as the actual proportion of people in employment. I would be interested to know what the Minister thinks about that idea. We used to think that being in work was the way to get out of poverty. Today, that on its own is clearly not enough.”
“Of course, they raise an entirely reasonable point about the quality of the work being undertaken, and I will say a couple of words about them. A number of our witnesses commented on that issue, and what Julia Unwin from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation said about it this morning was interesting. Her written evidence to us makes the point that “work also now offers less of a guarantee of a decent living standard than it did in the past. This suggests a need to look more closely at both the amount and type of work available to each household, as both these will influence whether people can reach an acceptable living standard through earned income.”
“I entirely accept that different definitions of full employment can reasonably be adopted. I think that the best definition is an 80% rate of employment. I accept that the case could be made for others, but we need to know what the Government’s definition is. Otherwise, the aspiration that has been set out is a pretty meaningless one. I hope that this afternoon the Minister will tell us what the Chancellor means by full employment, because there is not much point in having a commitment to it—indeed, there is an obligation in this clause on Ministers to report on progress towards it—if we have no idea what Ministers actually mean by the term, as is currently the case. I am looking forward to hearing in a moment the case for the SNP amendments that have been grouped with amendment 1.”
“For 25 years after the second world war, everyone agreed that we should have full employment and, by and large, we did. Between 1950 and 1973 the average rate of unemployment was 2%. It was always less than 1 million. In 1955 the unemployment rate actually fell to 1%. Of course, full employment never meant zero unemployment. William Beveridge, the architect of the post-war welfare state, said that full employment meant an unemployment rate of less than 3%. Milton Friedman referred to a natural rate of unemployment, whereby no one stays out of work for very long; unemployment would fluctuate, he suggested, between 5% and 6%. On top of that, of course, there will always be some people who are prevented from working by ill health—a number that seems to be rising quite significantly in the UK.”
“The fact is, it will not be possible to achieve an 80% overall employment rate without making significant progress in reducing the current disadvantage that people with disabilities, and other disadvantaged jobseekers, face—or indeed without making progress in localities where the employment rate is exceptionally low. We need the full employment target to deliver improvements for disadvantaged groups, as well as to others, so that everyone benefits from the achievement of that aspiration and large numbers of people are not left behind. Of course, others have argued for other definitions of full employment, and I entirely accept that the Minister might want to do that, although I suspect that if she signs up to a definition it will be one of those that I have suggested.”
“Of course, that is a challenging goal. There is no question about it. I am not for a moment suggesting that an 80% rate of employment will be delivered readily or in a short time. I suspect that it will take some time, and I think that strengthens the case for the proposal in amendment 24 that there should not be a sunset clause. We are going to have to go some to reach an 80% employment rate by 2020. It would mean an extra 2.5 million jobs—an additional 9% on the UK jobs total—but aiming for anything less would be short-changing Britain’s jobseekers. My hon. Friend the Member for Stretford and Urmston will move an amendment later relating to the Government’s equally welcome commitment to halve the currently very large disability employment gap.”
“I think we would all agree we should be doing significantly better than that. I think Bill Clinton said: “I do not believe we can repair the basic fabric of society until people who are willing to work have work.” All of us would sign up to that sentiment, but what exactly are the Government setting out to achieve in clause 1 and the required report? A couple of years ago, the TUC carried out research on employment rates across the OECD—so beyond the G7. At that point the highest rates of employment were 84.1% in Iceland and 80.4% in Switzerland, so if the definition used was to be the highest rate of employment in the OECD aside from very small countries such as Iceland, that would also get us to a figure close to the one of 80% that we use in the amendment. I hope the Minister will agree that that is where we should aim.”
“I accept that other definitions of full employment could be used. The Chancellor has given the impression, from time to time, that the definition he would like to see would be that of the highest rate of employment in the G7. That is a reasonable alternative definition; it is not as good a definition, but one could run with it. The central point is that we need to know what definition of full employment the Government are using in setting out their goal. Otherwise the target, and the purpose of the report required under the clause, is meaningless. G7 employment rates in July were 74% in Germany, 73% in Japan, 72.6% in Canada and the UK, 68.7% in the US, 63.8% in France and 56% in Italy, so on the most recent figures the UK’s employment rate is squarely in the middle.”
“Friend the Member for Stretford and Urmston said that 10 years ago—I persuaded her to say that it was 20 years ago; I think it was in 1993—Gordon Brown set out what was, at the time, a radical aspiration to achieve full employment. The Labour Government who were elected a few years later formally signed up to that goal and went on to explain what full employment meant to them. That is the point on which I want to press the Minister, through amendment 1. I welcome the fact that the Chancellor has said he wants us to achieve full employment, but we need to know what the Government mean by that. The amendment would make that clear. The last Labour Government, of which I was a member, was committed to full employment and said that that meant a rate of employment of 80%, which is why that figure is included in the amendment.”
“I welcome you to the Chair, Mr Streeter. We know that you will guide our deliberations with a firm but fair hand, and we look forward to benefiting from that. Some 18 months ago, the Chancellor of the Exchequer explicitly repudiated a notorious statement made by one of his Conservative predecessors that unemployment was a price “well worth paying” to bring down inflation. I suspect that all members of the Committee would support the Chancellor in repudiating that remark, which was made in 1991 or 1992 by the then Conservative Chancellor, now Lord Lamont. By contrast, today’s Chancellor affirmed the goal set out in modern times, first by Gordon Brown. My hon.”
“To be clear, is the Minister saying that the aim for full employment is to achieve the highest employment rate in the G7? Is that what the aspiration means?”
“The Minister has clarified the point. Just so it is absolutely clear, can she confirm that the report required in clause 1(1) will be about progress towards the highest rate of employment in the G7?”
“I am grateful to the Minister for her response, because at least we now have a definition. She is clearly saying that the Government’s definition of full employment is the highest rate of employment in the G7, and it is helpful to have that on the record. I do not think it is a very good definition of full employment. As I said in my earlier remarks, the highest rate of employment in the OECD, even if we miss out Iceland, which is perhaps an exceptional case, is that of Switzerland, at 80%. We ought to be aiming for better than 74%, which is currently the highest rate of employment in the G7—it is the rate of employment in Germany. I will press amendment 1 to a vote, which I hope the Committee will support.”
“My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We need to know more about what is proposed for Jobcentre Plus. We certainly need to know more about what is going on with universal credit. As far as I can tell, universal credit is running about four years late. We were told initially that 1 million people would be receiving universal credit by April 2014, and the last figure I saw was about 60,000.”
“Indeed. The Minister referred to universal credit as a tool for getting people into employment and for delivering full employment. We certainly hope it will be one day, but there will be a rather large period before we are anywhere near that stage. I hope the Committee supports amendment 1. Question put, That the amendment be made.”
“I beg to move amendment 75, in clause 2, page 1, line 16, at end insert— ‘(aa) information about the uptake of apprenticeships broken down by region, gender, age, ethnicity, disability, sector, qualification and level, (ab) a report by the UK Commission on Employment and Skills on the quality of apprenticeship being provided, and’. To specify additional information that must be included in the Secretary of State’s report progress towards meeting the apprenticeship target.”
“For example, of sustained job outcomes in the Work programme, 19.9% are secured by ethnic minorities, which is almost up to the full 20.2% in the population. Nevertheless, there seems to be a particular problem in the apprenticeship programme that must be addressed. I know that efforts are being made to do so, but so far they have fallen well short of what we would want to see. It is vital that the problem is fixed. Amendment 75 specifically requires a breakdown by ethnic origin, so that we can track what is happening. I hope that the Minister accepts that the amendment would build constructively on clause 2, and so will accept our proposals for strengthening the report.”
“Ethnic minorities are seriously under-represented among apprentices: 20.2% of the population are from an ethnic minority and 25.4% of apprenticeship applications are from ethnic minorities—a larger proportion than in the population as a whole—but the proportion of people from ethnic minorities who start an apprenticeship is only 13.8%, which is way less than the proportion in the population and around only half the proportion of those who applied. The problem of under-representation of ethnic minority citizens among apprentices is not new. I first asked a written question on the subject three years ago, when I was told that 9.8% of starts were from ethnic minorities, so the current proportion, 13.8%, has gone up, of which I am glad. In fairness to the Government, the problem is not repeated throughout their employment support measures.”
“One consequence of that emphasis in the apprenticeship programme is that only quite a small proportion of apprenticeships are undertaken by young people. Worse still, the number of young apprentices fell last year—a pretty disastrous development that is contrary to what we all want—so it is important to get a breakdown of apprenticeships by age each year. Secondly, it is important that we see a breakdown of apprentices by ethnic origin. I pay tribute to the work of the Black Training and Enterprise Group and its chief executive, Jeremy Crook.”
“Friend will move a separate amendment on that in a moment—and we need information by region and by gender. The importance of those breakdowns will be apparent to everyone. I want to say a little more about the other two breakdowns the amendment calls for. The first is the breakdown of apprenticeships by age. As we heard from the witness from the British Chambers of Commerce, a lot of things that are called apprenticeships are really just rebadged Train to Gain programmes. Train to Gain was a programme under the last Labour Government wherein existing employees would take often quite short training courses to increase their skill levels. There is nothing wrong with that, of course, but it is not what most of us think of when we hear the term “apprenticeship”.”
“Friend the Member for Stretford and Urmston has referred, the commission has said: “High quality apprenticeships should be a normal career pathway for many more young people, and a normal way for businesses to recruit and develop…talent”. The commission has the necessary independence, as well as the expertise, to provide the independent review of quality that, from the evidence we have heard in Committee and from what everyone in the field says, is needed. The amendment also specifies a number of breakdowns of apprenticeship numbers that could be useful for informing policy and understanding of how the apprenticeships programme is working in practice. We should know the number of apprenticeships taken up each year by people with disabilities—my hon.”
“It has produced a series of reports called “Working Futures”, “Careers of the Future”, and “The Future of Work: Jobs and Skills in 2030”. It also has the capacity to give independent advice. It does not simply say what the Government want to hear. I do not know whether the commission is subject to the same sort of pressure as the Office for Budget Responsibility—we have discovered over the past couple of days that the Treasury leans on the OBR to prevent it saying things that will embarrass the Government—but we do know that the commission is able to make independent remarks. On the persistent problem of stubbornly high unemployment among young people, to which my hon.”
“The commission’s chair, Sir Charlie Mayfield, is also chairman of the John Lewis Partnership, and the commission includes such distinguished business people as the director general of the CBI and the general secretary of the TUC. It includes representatives of large and small businesses, including Will Butler-Adams, the managing director of Brompton; Julie Kenny, the chairman of Pyronix, with whom I worked when I was a Minister; Grahame Smith from the Scottish TUC; and Liz Sayce of Disability Rights UK. The commission has a broad range of experience and perspectives, and it has done a lot of relevant work in this area. It has published reports on understanding skills and performance challenges in a range of sectors, and those reports address apprenticeship issues.”
“Secondly, the amendment requires the Secretary of State to publish each year a report from the UK Commission for Employment and Skills specifically addressing and describing the quality of the apprenticeships on which participants have embarked in the previous year. Is the UK Commission for Employment and Skills the right body to produce that report? Clearly, what we want is an independent, reliable report on quality, which might be achieved in a number of ways, but the UKCES is in a good position to fulfil the task. It is, of course, a Government-appointed commission, so I hope the Government feel that they can have confidence in its conclusions.”
“We do not want to see a decline in quality because we are just chasing an arbitrary figure.” ––[Official Report, Welfare Reform and Work Public Bill Committee, 10 September 2015; c.9, Q10.] I am confident that every member of the Committee will agree with his sentiment. Amendment 75 addresses those concerns about apprenticeship quality, which are widely expressed by businesses and others, in two ways. First, it requires the report produced each year to split the apprenticeship starts in that year by sector, qualification and level, which is exactly the split Rebecca Plant called for in her evidence on Thursday.”
“She also said that “traineeships should not count towards that 3 million at all.” ––[Official Report, Welfare Reform and Work Public Bill Committee, 10 September 2015; c.8-9, Q8-9.] I do not imagine that traineeships will count towards the 3 million target, but I would be grateful if the Minister could confirm that. The concerns raised by Rebecca Plant were echoed and amplified by Marcus Mason, our witness from the British Chambers of Commerce, who said: “I would like to echo Rebecca’s comments and the worries about the 3 million figure…the apprenticeship starts from the previous Parliament—just over 2 million—included a lot of rebadging of Train to Gain programmes, and we do not want to see that again.”
“She told us of “myriad examples, such as apprenticeship barman and of apprenticeships in really low skills.” She asked: “How is that an apprenticeship?”, and went on to say, “people are just turning a job role into an apprenticeship…That is not right.” She argued that the 3 million target “should be broken down into levels of skills, so that higher level—level 4—degree apprenticeships should be broken out and there should be clarity.” She continued: “I would break it down and give transparency. What is a level 2 apprenticeship? What are people signing up to? Badging level 2 programmes as an apprenticeship is fundamentally wrong.” She gave an impressive account of her thinking. In the middle she said, “I am sorry…I am not very good at this”, but actually she gave us valuable evidence.”
“We come to the part of the Bill that deals with apprenticeships, and we are keen to get on to the second group of amendments on the clause, so I will get a move on. We welcome the target set out for England in the Bill. I think it is rather unusual that there should be 3 million apprenticeship starts in the period 2015 to 2020—the target is ambitious and one that we support and welcome. However, we heard in our evidence sessions that there is a danger. Rebecca Plant, the head of apprentices and graduates for Capp, told us on Thursday that she thinks the only way the target can be achieved is by sacrificing quality.”
“I will not press the amendment now, but I hope that she might commend our idea to her colleagues. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.”
“I am grateful to the Minister for what she has told us about the data that will be published, which does pick up on the points in the first part of amendment 75. I am disappointed, however, that she was unable to confirm to my hon. Friend that we will be able to find out the number of people with education, health and care plans entering into apprenticeships, but I hope that the Minister will have another look to see whether that can be provided. The Minister is a bit complacent on the quality point. I accept that it is not really a matter for her—it is for her colleagues in BIS—but we heard during our evidence from the British Chambers of Commerce, no less, that the only way the 3 million target will be achieved is by watering down quality. The mechanism that we proposed would have dealt with that.”
“I beg to move amendment 4, in clause 3, page 2, line 46, at end insert— ‘(2A) The matters by which the progress made by a household that receives relevant support shall be measured under subsection (1)(b) include whether a member of the household is in employment.” This requires one of the factors which is used to measure whether a household receive support is making progress is whether or a not a member of the household is employed.”
“The under-18 conception rate is only 2%—rather contrary to the stereotypes we sometimes hear. Some 90% of the adults in the families involved have committed no criminal offence. Only 3% have been treated for alcohol dependency, and it is the same proportion for drug dependency. But 46% of households have an adult or adults suffering a mental health problem, and 33% of the children have mental health problems—that is a particularly troubling figure. Some 32% of the adults and 20% of the children have a long-standing physical illness or disability. Some 74% are workless households. For 83%, at least one person receives out-of-work benefits; 27%are in rent arrears; and 21% are at risk of eviction from their homes.”
“The goal announced in 2011 was to turn around 120,000 troubled families in England by this year, aiming to turn around the patterns repeated in generations of poor parenting—abuse, violence, drug misuse, antisocial behaviour and crime—with the Government investing some £4,000 per family over three years on a payment by results basis. The key element of the programme—this was distinctive to the family intervention projects as well—is that each family has an assigned caseworker responsible for turning their fortunes around and bringing together the efforts of all the agencies working with that family to maximise the chances of success. The official evaluation, published last July, gave us some detailed information. Some 49% of all families in scope are lone-parent families.”
“The troubled families programme is in touch with a lot of agencies: with housing departments because of rent arrears; with social services about the wellbeing of children; with police and youth offending teams; sometimes with drug and alcohol services; with education departments over school non-attendance and exclusion; and with the health service. All of that means that the families we are talking about impose a high cost on the taxpayer. They are also often high-harm to themselves and to others. Outcomes for children in those families tend to be poor, and many are on the borderline of being taken into care. A solution has to involve all family members and a multiplicity of agencies, so inter-agency planning delivery is the key to the effectiveness of the programme.”
“We now deal with the troubled families programme, for which there is widespread support. As Ministers have acknowledged, it has its roots in the family intervention projects introduced by the previous Labour Government. The pioneering Dundee families project, established in 1995, has been particularly influential. The approach has all-party support, and we welcome the proposal in the clause to introduce a new and more formalised reporting obligation. The troubled families programme as it currently stands was given a big push by the riots in summer 2011 and was launched by the Prime Minister later that year. Louise Casey was appointed director general in November 2011.”
“The Minister emphasised that getting people into employment is at the heart—I think those were her words—of the troubled families programme. I welcome her assurance, but that should surely then always be in the criteria against which the programme is assessed.”
“I am glad that the point will be covered in the first report, but I am rather puzzled as to why the Minister is not willing to say that it should be covered in all reports, given the centrality of employment to the goals of the programme. Nevertheless, I am grateful for her response and will not press the amendment to a vote. I hope that, in practice, we will find employment featuring prominently in each of those reports in each of the years they appear. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.”
“The Local Government Association has made the point to us that, to minimise additional work in producing the report required by clause 3, data contained in the report must, so far as is practicable, be derived from any relevant official statistics, the national impact study and family progress data. What is the Minister’s response to that specific proposal?”
“The announcement last March, on which the Full Fact website was rather sceptical, claimed that £1.2 billion had been saved as a result of the programme but, to secure a robust evaluation of the programme and to grasp the impact of those families on the Exchequer and the effect of the programme, there is no alternative to compiling the figures required by amendment 6, which would hopefully decline year on year if the programme is having the impact that we all want. This is my final point, Mr Streeter, because I have a shrewd suspicion that you may not call a stand part debate on the clause today.”
“In particular, many local authorities, because it makes such a big difference to them if the families can be set on a new and positive path, are supplementing the resources provided by central Government, and other agencies are also contributing. We need to know the total value of spending on those households by the relevant agencies, and amendment 6 simply requires the report produced under clause 3 to include that vital piece of information. The Government say that the 120,000 or so troubled families in the current programme cost the state £9 billion a year. Ideally, we would like to have a set of figures that add up at the beginning to £9 billion being spent on those families but that then fall as the programme starts to take effect.”
“I beg to move amendment 6, in clause 3, page 3, line 6, at end insert— ‘(4A) A report prepared under this section must include information about the total value of expenditure directed at supporting relevant households by— (a) local government, (b) central government, and (c) government agencies.” To require the report on support for troubled households to specify how much has been spent to support targeted households by different parts of government. I will not take up much of the Committee’s time on amendment 6, but there is one other set of data that we need to make a full evaluation of this programme: how much is being spent on it? As I understand it, the central Government allocation is £4,000 per participating family but, of course, other resources are also being allocated to those families.”
“Ministers claim the figures to be savings with some authority, but it would be advisable to provide the more robust data that underpin the figures and estimates before such a claim is made. I do not propose to press the amendment to a Division, but the next time figures are claimed for savings resulting from the programme, I hope we have a more robust basis than that used in March. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn. Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.”
“I am grateful to the Minister. When the evaluation came out in March, the then Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government did not speak in the circumspect terms used by the Minister. He claimed that £1.2 billion had been saved. Full Fact points out, however, that that was based on just seven of the 152 local authorities that took part. Most areas showed gross savings per family of between £6,000 and £10,000, but in Salford savings were £18,000 and in Staffordshire they were claimed to be £49,000. The average was taken from those seven and grossed up to the 152, with the result being the £1.2 billion figure that Full Fact is understandably rather sceptical about.”
“In my earlier remarks I raised a question for the Minister about the request from the Local Government Association that information should be taken from existing sources where possible to minimise the amount of work. Is she in a position to comment on that, or perhaps will she drop me a line?”
“A couple with two children, in which one works as a senior schools admission official earning £26,000 a year, will be more than £2,500 worse off next year because of the measure the Minister is proposing. Does he recognise that it will wreck the solvency of that working family? What does he think they should do?”
“When you had lone parent advisers, the evidence was that they were really helping to get single parents into sustainable employment. That expertise does now seem to be lacking. That is certainly a concern.”
“That presents a particular concern about the proposals around conditionality. Without those lone parent flexibilities, single parents, with three and four-year-olds, who are required to work, have fewer safeguards to be able to say, “It is not reasonable for me to work at the weekend because there is not any childcare at the weekend.” Our feedback through the advice line is definitely that it is a growing concern; that the flexibilities are not being applied consistently. The other thing I would add quickly is that there are now far fewer lone parent advisers than previously. There are some left but the trend is that work coaches should have expertise in lone-parent issues. The feedback we have had is that that is contributing to the issues. Obviously, single parents have a number of factors that need to be considered.”
“To put that in context, the lone parent flexibilities were traditionally in secondary legislation—in regulations. With universal credit, they are being taken out of secondary legislation and put into guidance. The feedback from single parents is that they have felt pressure to take jobs at hours that do not fit with their caring responsibilities, such as night shifts at the weekends or working in the evenings, and that sufficient consideration has not been given to the childcare that is available or to the type of jobs that they might be able to take. We are having an ongoing discussion with officials at the Department for Work and Pensions about this but it is difficult to get any clarity about the steps that are being taken to ensure that the flexibilities are applied consistently.”