Pamela Nash
MP for Motherwell, Wishaw and Carluke · Labour · United Kingdom
“By ending Tory austerity and increasing the settlement to the Scottish Government by nearly £12 billion, this UK Labour Government have provided adequate funding for the SNP to properly resource Scotland’s rural economy.”
“I appreciate that the right hon. Gentleman wants to make a political point about the Windsor framework, but does he accept that wide consultation was carried out by the Government in Northern Ireland ahead of these regulations?”
“I share the vision of my hon. Friend, and that is exactly what I for Dalzell in Motherwell. At the moment we have staff who are worried each month about whether they are going to get paid, as they see troubling headlines and hear rumours about their parent company.”
“This legislation is designed for extraordinary situations, so we are going to have to agree to disagree on that point. Motherwell remains the home of steel in Scotland.”
“I thank the hon. Gentleman for his very helpful intervention. For the reasons I have set out, we are getting to the point where we are losing experienced staff and equipment is in danger of going out of date. Time is running out very quickly for Dalzell.”
“I completely agree with my hon. Friend. That is certainly the experience we have had in Motherwell in my constituency, where a questionable buyer for Dalzell has caused many problems. I will go into that later in my speech.”
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“Our report outlines the findings of almost one year of research conducted by the all-party group, which included visits to South Africa and India, and also many written and oral evidence sessions here in Parliament. Despite the incredible progress that has been made in the battle against HIV, there remain many barriers to accessing medicines and treatment in low and middle-income countries. The latest estimates from UNAIDS—the joint UN programme on HIV/AIDS—show that there are around 35 million people infected and living with HIV globally. There are encouraging figures, too. New infections have reduced from a peak of 3.4 million in 2001 to 2.1 million in 2013, the most recent year that we have complete figures for.”
“It is notable that the group has extremely active members from all political parties represented in the House of Commons, and we have many active members of considerable experience from the other place, too. The cross-party consensus has been consistent for the four years that I have been chair of the group, as I understand it was before my chairpersonship, and I hope that that will long continue. The debate is about access to HIV treatment in low and middle-income countries, but many issues that we will cover today, and which were covered in the report, are relevant to various diseases of poverty. I hope that we are able to discuss some of those later in the debate.”
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairpersonship, Mrs Main. I and the other members of the all-party group on HIV and AIDS are extremely grateful to be granted this debate to discuss access to HIV treatment in low and middle-income countries. The debate is based on the findings of our “Access Denied” report, which our group has been working on for a long time, so we appreciate the chance to bring it to Westminster Hall today. I am grateful to the members of the group who have come to join us today. They have shown great dedication to this issue, which has not been riding high in the public agenda in recent years. Nevertheless, it is still extremely important and I am grateful for their support.”
“We visited generic companies and saw the work that they were doing, and we went to clinics to see the people who were being treated with those drugs, who otherwise would not be receiving any medication. We now have affordable first-line treatments that are available as a result of the voluntary licences, and that has been instrumental in increasing access to treatment. We now have a price for first-line treatments of around $100 per person per year, whereas 10 years ago it was $10,000 per person per year, so there has been a huge drop in price. Unfortunately, however, if a patient’s first-line treatment is failing and second and third-line treatments are required, the cost of those treatments still remains high.”
“Intellectual property rights grant exclusive rights to manufacture drugs without competition, and that lack of competition leads to high prices. That said, there is a globally accepted principle that IP rights and patents do not interfere with public health. That was not always the case, however, and in my experience threats to that principle have been overcome only by huge public campaigns. Governments can bypass IP rights if there is a public health need by imposing compulsory licences. Alternatively, innovator drug companies can agree voluntary licences. Both those ways allow generic pharmaceutical companies to produce quality-assured generic treatments. We saw that first hand during our inquiry, when we visited India and South Africa.”
“I will discuss some of those barriers in more depth, but I will start with the cost of treatment. Treatment prices remain one of the biggest barriers to accessing ARV treatment. From my experience in the all-party group and otherwise, the justification that we have often heard for high prices of medications has been the extremely high cost of research and development. Although that is a considerable cost and investment for many pharmaceutical companies, it was enlightening to hear, in one oral evidence session for the report, a pharmaceutical company representative admit that it is not the case that that determines the price. He was clear in saying that the price of treatments is primarily driven by licensing costs and decisions by pharmaceutical companies about what the market will bear.”
“We still see men who have sex with men, sex workers, injecting drug users and transgender people not getting the prioritisation that they need. They are being left behind, even in countries that are otherwise doing well in creating access to medicine. We also continue to see severe stigma and discrimination with respect to all people who live with HIV. That stops people accessing not only treatment, but advice on prevention and testing. That is causing people to contract HIV; it is not just affecting their treatment. Sharp reductions in support—financial, technical and otherwise—to countries becoming classified as middle income are having a direct impact on the treatment of people living with HIV. To be clear, that is a much bigger debate in international development, but it is a clear example of the impact that is happening.”
“In our inquiry, we also found that there is completely inadequate access to the most effective testing and diagnostic tools, especially viral load testing. We found that continued weak and unsupported health systems in low and middle-income countries were having a direct impact on people living with HIV. Poor supply chain management is having an impact, although it is avoidable with technical support. Lack of investment in research and development is still having an impact. We found that particularly in lower priority areas and in less profitable treatment areas such as paediatric medicines. In many countries there is still no political prioritisation of key populations most at risk, unlike here in the UK with our development work.”
“I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. He is an active member of the all-party group, and I appreciate his support in the work that we do. I want to move on to the barriers to accessing treatment, which we have drawn attention to in our report. Various barriers were obvious to us at the beginning of our inquiry, but the impact of many came as a surprise. Barriers include the continued high cost of second and third-line treatments. The cost of first-line treatments has come down considerably, particularly due to the fantastic impact of the medicines patent pool. Indeed, the full impact that that will have is yet to come to fruition. However, second and third-line treatments remain very expensive for the poorest people living with HIV.”
“As I said at the start of my remarks, despite that progress, so much more can be done. We need to ensure that that happens by working together to tackle the barriers that are outlined in the report.”
“There is cross-party support in the House for fighting discrimination, and I am proud of our country’s record of working to do so. I hope that that will continue. In conclusion, I am grateful to have had the opportunity to debate this important subject. Hon. Members may think that I have gone on a bit, but I could speak for hours about the detail of the report. It was born out of the huge impact of the report on access to medicines that our predecessor group published in 2009, which I have seen on shelves across the world in countries that I have had the privilege of visiting as chair of the all-party group. A huge amount of progress has been made in the past five years, and a great deal has changed, so I felt that it was time to look at these issues again.”
“Criminalisation of key populations also remains widespread, and 60% of countries report having laws, regulations or policies which present obstacles to effective HIV prevention, treatment, care and support for key populations and vulnerable groups.” Stigma and discrimination must be challenged wherever they are encountered, whether at a community or a state-wide level. If we do not remove social barriers to accessing testing and treatment, scientific advances will be ineffective. The thing I find most painful about this section of the report is that the position of key populations is not improving but getting worse. There have been many debates in this Chamber about the situation in Uganda and the change in its laws, and there has been much interest in what has happened in Russia.”
“For the avoidance of doubt, I am talking about injecting drug users, sex workers, men who have sex with men, and the transgender population. As I outlined earlier, many global funders actively restrict funding to such countries. That inevitably creates barriers to access for the most vulnerable groups, because there is no political will in those countries to help the key populations that are most affected. The UNAIDS report highlighted the barriers to treatment created by punitive and discriminatory legislation in many countries: “As of 2013, 63 countries have in at least one jurisdiction, specific provisions that allow for the persecution of HIV nondisclosure, exposure and/or transmission.”
“In addition to the practical, scientific and economic barriers that have been outlined, there are definite social barriers to treatment. The UNAIDS report on the global AIDS epidemic demonstrates that key populations are being left behind when it comes to access to treatment across the globe. The problem is not confined to low, middle or upper-middle-income countries, but it is particularly acute in some upper-middle-income countries—such as former Soviet Union states and countries in central Asia—because HIV epidemics are growing rapidly among key populations. As MSF pointed out in its submission to our inquiry, the problem of pricing in such countries is compounded by the fact that the epidemics are not generalised but concentrated in marginalised populations.”
“Those challenges include significant delays in registering new drugs, poor demand forecasting and ordering, inadequate storage facilities, stock-outs, corruption and poor patient record management. I would be grateful if the Minister outlined what his Department is doing to address those issues and to support health system strengthening to improve access to treatment, particularly in terms of what we can do to encourage investment in making viral load testing cheaper and more accessible to low and middle-income countries. The final issue that I will consider is that key populations are being left behind. That has been much debated in the main Chamber and in this room by the all-party group on HIV and AIDS and by our friends among other all-party groups.”
“Even as the tests are becoming more affordable, there remains a challenge to ensure that these systems are in place. There is a need to develop affordable, accurate point-of-care testing to increase available testing and to reduce delays. That would avoid the need for patients to travel hundreds of miles to testing centres far from their homes and would significantly improve the quality of care received by patients. Diagnostics are just one area where we see a disparity in treatment between rich and poor countries. We also see that across the spectrum of clinical settings. Distribution networks and health systems in low and middle-income countries are far behind where they need to be. Supply chains are vulnerable to a number of issues, resulting in poor access to treatments.”
“There were layers and layers of bureaucracy for such a person. The only justification that I can give is that people there just did not have the capacity and were trying to limit the number of individuals going for viral load testing because they could not afford to send any more. When we met representatives of organisations that were lobbying the Government and, indeed, us on this issue, they told us horrific stories of people who had died waiting to get a test to know whether their treatment was failing. That is something that we do not need to live with in this country, and we have the technology to stop it happening. I feel that we have a responsibility to try to increase the capacity for viral load testing across the world as soon as possible.”
“If any of us in this Chamber were living with HIV in the UK, we would be undergoing regular viral load testing to ensure the effectiveness of our treatment. The idea is that if the treatment is not effective, people are moved on to second-line or third-line treatment as soon as possible. In low and middle-income countries, however, viral load testing is limited, which leads to lower standards of care and delays in identifying treatment failure. There have been recent moves to reduce prices, but the tests are carried out only in specialist centres with limited capacity. When I was in India, we went to a clinic and saw the situation at first hand. There was very limited capacity to provide viral load testing. When someone was suspected of having a treatment failure, they had to go in front of a board.”
“Our research findings show that the Government could be doing much more to explore the benefits of alternative research models, and I urge them to commission a paper analysing the costs and benefits of alternative R and D models. I ask the Minister whether the Department is considering that. It was a key recommendation of the “Access Denied” report and was previously communicated to the Department. I want to touch on another finding of the report—the lack of access to viral load testing. We need effective diagnostic tools if we are to provide quality care, but we are seeing very limited investment in that area of research and provision. Viral load testing is the gold standard of diagnostic testing, with increases in viral load indicating treatment failure.”
“Examples of such mechanisms include prizes for the first researchers to come up with a specified innovation, advance market commitments or tax credits on the sale of a certain product that has yet to be developed. There are examples of that already. We have seen success in delinking R and D costs in relation to the meningitis A vaccine initiative. That developed an adapted meningitis A vaccine through collaborative research, which included the National Institutes of Health and the Serum Institute of India, a private vaccines company. The cost of the vaccine is approximately 50 cents a dose. Furthermore, delinked models of R and D are under consideration for the development of new antibiotics, particularly because there are no incentives for industry to develop products that are meant to be both affordable and conserved or tightly managed.”
“Models for encouraging innovation in relation to HIV and neglected diseases can broadly be divided into push and pull mechanisms. Push mechanisms reduce the risks and costs of investment in R and D. They include direct funding of research and tax credits, both of which have already been used by the UK Government. The main drawback to push mechanisms, such as direct funding, is that they require funders to make a judgment about which research bodies are most likely to achieve the needed results. Clearly, more research is needed into who would be the best people to make that judgment. Pull mechanisms, in contrast, create an extra incentive to achieve the result, such as a new medicine, with the benefit delivered only on achievement.”
“On treatment, a key recommendation in the report is for DFID to play a role in developing new R and D models that are delinked from profits, based on open data sharing and reward people for the development of new clinical technologies, rather than exclusive sales rights being granted. We have recent examples of where what I have described could be a continued problem and where the solution that we have proposed could work. The Ebola crisis is a good example of the failings of the current global model, whereby a vaccine is developed only after a crisis has developed because there was no market incentive to develop one before. Médecins sans Frontières estimates that a vaccine for Ebola will emerge not from a private laboratory, but from publicly funded research.”
“If a potential market does not exist, there is currently no incentive to develop products. The need for market advantage reduces collaboration between researchers and increases delays in research into potential vaccines and cures and more effective treatment regimes. At this point, I want to highlight the fact that in the report we note the disappointment in the UK Government for withdrawing 80% of the funding for the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative and research into an HIV vaccine. Will the Government reconsider that? If not, can the Minister explain why not?”
“Will the Minister tell us whether that is recognised by the Government and whether there is any change in the Government’s thinking on how we look at middle-income countries and their support, particularly on this issue but also more generally? As I said, the current models of research and development are not delivering all the treatments necessary to meet public health needs. R and D is not prioritised based on need; it is prioritised according to the most profitable products. In our report, we found that there is a gap in relation to treatment for many HIV co-infections, paediatric treatment and diagnostics for small children. Existing models for R and D rely on pharmaceutical companies securing patents that grant exclusive rights to sell the drugs that they develop.”
“However, we have seen multilateral organisations following the lead of bilateral donors and reducing support for middle-income countries. I repeat to the Minister that we should not underestimate the influence that the UK has globally. I say that not with a conceited British ego, but from the experience of speaking to multilateral donors and the people who run those organisations and to people from donor countries and from countries that benefit. When we speak to them, they beg us to bring to DFID the view that this is a huge problem. If a solution to it is to be found, it will require political leadership from the British Government and DFID and a concerted effort to make this issue a priority to ensure that it receives the necessary political attention.”
“Of course, we should expect countries to take on an ever-increasing responsibility for their own development as they become wealthier, but we should not assume that a country with a label of middle-income status has the resources or the technical capacity to cope with aid being withdrawn. The inequality within middle-income countries must be kept in mind. Increasing GNI does not instantly equate to improved living standards or fantastic new health systems, particularly for the poorest and hardest to reach. In relation to access to treatment, funding decisions should be based solely on evidence. As bilateral donors such as us are withdrawing funding from middle-income countries, so the burden falls on multilateral donors to plug the gaps until countries in transition can fund their services from domestic resources.”
“In addition, we are, in my view, using outdated country classifications and pushing more and more countries prematurely into middle-income status. When those factors combine, national Governments in middle-income countries are unable to provide services, leading to a treatment crisis. Classification of countries must move away from the current gross national income to a more nuanced analysis. Further support needs to be given to countries, as they graduate through classifications. Decisions about the provision of aid need to be based on need, not just country classifications, although it is completely correct that resources should be prioritised to those who need them most.”
“For example, prices for second-line drugs in Argentina are $2,570 per person per year, and the price in Mexico is similar. That is over 12 times the price that South Africa pays at $204 per person per year, which is double the price that I mentioned earlier of $100, which is available for first-line drugs in many low-income countries. At the same time as they face increased prices, many middle-income countries are having their official development assistance withdrawn from bilateral and multilateral donors. As far as I can see, that has been this Government’s policy, not only in bilateral support, but in using the UK’s influence on the expenditure of multilateral donors to which we contribute, such as the global fund.”
“During the inquiry, I was particularly struck, more than ever before in my involvement in international development, by the squeeze on middle-income countries and particularly by the impact on the poorest people living in those countries. As I said, this is part of a much bigger debate in international development—it is not confined to HIV—but access to medicine is a clear example of where we might be going wrong. In providing HIV treatment, middle-income countries in particular are facing a crisis of increased prices combined with reduced financial support. Many of those countries are excluded from the licensing deals that I just mentioned for first-line treatments that allow generic production and supply, forcing them to purchase from innovator pharmaceutical companies at market prices. Those prices are prohibitive and inconsistent.”
“Any introduction of more onerous patent rules would hinder the ability of generic manufacturers to operate and reduce competition and drive prices back up. That would be disastrous for access to treatment, and our Government must do all they can to protect global public health within these and future agreements. I would be grateful if the Minister clarified today whether the Department for International Development shares any of those concerns and if he put on record his Department’s formal input into free trade agreements. I appreciate that some of that is private, but I am asking how the Department does that and whether he feels that has an impact on the Government’s view as they go into these negotiations. I shall move on to middle-income countries.”
“In relation to the points that my hon. Friend made, issues have been raised about free trade agreements, in the inquiry and since with the all-party group. The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership will certainly not be a stranger to the inboxes of most Members in Westminster Hall today. TTIP and the Asia-Pacific Trans-Pacific Partnership—free trade agreements that are under negotiation—seem to pose the risk of introducing additional property rights restrictions or extending patent exclusivity. Although TTIP and TPP do not have a direct impact on the low and middle-income countries that we are discussing, an impact will be felt by them. There is a reasonable fear that the precedent set by those trade agreements will have an impact and shape future agreements.”
“There has been a lot of experience of those companies trying to dodge that, but there are good examples of companies such as Gilead, which have been willing to be at the forefront of being part of voluntary licences and of the medicines patent pool. I do not want to stand here and paint the pharmaceutical companies as the bad guys, because without them we would not have those drugs, but we want to encourage responsible behaviour from them and ensure that they realise what a fantastic contribution they can make to the public health of the world and of people living with HIV. As I said before the intervention from my hon. Friend the Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire North (Jim Sheridan), there is still a clear problem with second and third-line medication being much more expensive than first-line treatment.”
“We met the South African Government and lobby groups in South Africa on that issue. There was a war between the pharmaceutical companies and Médecins sans Frontières and other smaller groups about this, and it was part of a wider campaign from some pharmaceutical companies to prevent any legislation that might reduce their power to have higher prices. That included such things as “evergreening”, which we have seen in other countries, when patents are granted for a drug because there is a slight change in its chemical composition. Drugs are designed to have a new patent and therefore get round some of the existing patent legislation.”
“I am extremely grateful to the Minister for making that point, which will be good news not only for the all-party group but for the organisations that support us. I want to make one small point, which I have raised informally with the Department. The minutes of the UNITAID board meeting in December state that there was a reduced contribution from the UK Government. Can the Minister clarify that or seek advice from his colleagues?”
“I acknowledge that the present Government have made considerable progress towards compensating those who have suffered losses, but that comes nowhere near to fulfilling the promises of a fair payment scheme that appeared in the Conservative and Liberal Democrat manifestos. That is not just my view; I suspect that it is the view of the vast majority of the 1 million people who have been affected. I ask the Government not to leave this matter any longer and to address it in the upcoming Budget. I ask them to ensure that people are compensated so that they no longer feel that the Government are letting them down.”
“Those affected by the maladministration of Equitable Life have been left in great financial difficulty despite planning and saving carefully for their retirement. This has had a serious impact on their quality of life. In my experience, those affected are just as angry with the Government as with Equitable Life. They are angry with successive Governments for not taking full responsibility for the failures identified at the time and for not adequately compensating those affected. One elderly constituent said to me, “They are waiting for us to die.” That is the appalling impression that that lady has been given, and I am sure that she is not alone.”
“They would probably use the more traditional forms of media used for publicity campaigns. Also, I found it difficult when preparing for this debate to get figures telling me how many of my constituents might be affected. Will the Minister explain to the House why no figures are obtainable showing the regional breakdown of those affected by the collapse of Equitable Life’s payment scheme? Time is against many of the policyholders. We have heard that many have sadly died. The Lib Dem manifesto promised to set up a “transparent and fair payment scheme” and the Conservative manifesto had a similar promise, but many policyholders feel that the current scheme does not fulfil those promises.”
“These are not wealthy people; they are people who are being hit by the cost of living crisis that my other constituents are facing. They have lost life-changing sums of money and their standard of living has been devastated in many cases. Their own personal long-term economic plans have been shredded, through absolutely no fault of their own. Some hon. Members have referred to the fact that locating the people who are eligible for compensation has been slow and inadequate. I believe that about 151,000 people still need to be found by the Government. What does the Minister plan to do to widen public knowledge of this issue in the near future? What publicity campaigns are planned to reach the most unreachable people, many of whom are pensioners without internet access?”
“The policyholders who got caught up in the Equitable Life disaster were hard-working taxpayers who played by the rules, worked hard and prudently and responsibly saved for their retirement. The lady I just mentioned had worked for a company that had to comply with financial services legislation, which only serves to fuel her incredulity at what has been allowed to happen. She retired 20 years ago, hoping that the policy she had taken out would fulfil its promise, but she was misled and mis-sold a policy that she had received with good industry-approved advice. She believed that she held a legitimate and lucrative policy. She, and many others like her, put their faith in the pensions system and planned for their retirement sensibly, only to find that the rug had been pulled from beneath their feet when they retired.”
“On Friday, I met two of my constituents who have been impacted by the maladministration of Equitable Life in quite different ways. The first was a gentleman who had cautiously saved for many years with Equitable Life. His hope, when he took out the policy, was to fund an early retirement at the age of 60. He is now approaching that age, but his hope has been dashed by the failure of Equitable Life. He managed to withdraw some of his money when the problems started to occur, but he has still suffered the loss of tens of thousands of pounds and he has been given to understand that he is entitled to no further compensation. The second was a lady in her 80s who had saved for decades but has been left with just a small fraction of her money in retirement. These are not gullible people.”
“I, too, congratulate the hon. Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) and my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds North East (Fabian Hamilton) on their work on this important issue and on securing the debate today. They outlined articulately the time line of the issues surrounding Equitable Life, and I do not intend to repeat any of that. More than 1 million people throughout the country have been affected by the issue, which dates back to the early 1990s. No Government between then and now have adequately dealt with the problems; they have been problems for successive Governments. However, the people who are affected do not care which party is in government; they simply want to be compensated and to feel supported by the Government of the day in getting the compensation and help that they deserve.”
“In my experience the Opposition do support work experience, and there are many examples of that. Does the Secretary of State realise that there are already local examples of programmes similar to that which we are today proposing nationally? For example, my local authority, North Lanarkshire council, is about to announce that 5,000 people have got into work as a result of a similar project. Permanent private sector jobs have been created as a result of a six-month wage subsidy.”
“Our opposition is to the Government’s exploitation of the unemployed through poor-quality, mandatory, unpaid work experience. I would be less likely to be in the House today had I not had the opportunity to benefit from high-quality work experience when I was young. That led me to launch the Our Community project, in conjunction with the trade union Community and the local jobcentre. The project matches young unemployed people with voluntary, high-quality work experience provided by local employers. Work experience is extremely valuable, and we must do all that we can to nurture the culture that produces it.”
“Indeed, it will help thousands of people back into work across the country. We know that youth and long-term unemployment has a detrimental effect on people’s self-worth, their mental and physical health and their circumstances. However, that impact is not confined to individuals; it is also felt by their families, by the people around them, and by their communities. The youth dole queue, which is currently the length of Hadrian’s Wall, shows us the impact that this is having, and can have, on society as a whole, and it is the responsibility of whichever Government are in power to tackle it. In the short time that is available to me, I must confront the Secretary of State’s claim, in his opening speech, that the Labour party is opposed to work experience. I find that offensive, because it is categorically wrong.”
“Thank you for calling me to speak in this important debate, Mr Deputy Speaker. I have to start by saying that I am particularly proud to be a member of the Labour party and the labour movement, as we debate this policy. I feel it reflects the heart of our movement and where our priorities lie in creating new opportunities for young unemployed and long-term unemployed people to give them the dignity of paid work and skills development, while simultaneously supporting job creation and business growth, making for a stronger, more vibrant economy with permanent long-term jobs. I have no doubt that, should we have a Labour Government in May, this policy will make an incredible impact in my constituency of Airdrie and Shotts, complementing the existing work going on at local government level and in the voluntary sector.”
“The jobs guarantee that my party has proposed today, and in the last few months, is the culmination of other successful policies that we have seen in the past, and see currently in other parts of the United Kingdom. I think that it will be a game changer, creating jobs and tackling both youth and long-term unemployment, and I look forward to its implementation by a Labour Government in May.”
“The project has also put considerable effort into encouraging the creation of jobs for those who find it most difficult to obtain work, including those who live with disabilities and young people who are leaving the care system. Earlier, both SNP and Tory Members heckled my right hon. Friend the Member for East Ham, saying that after the six months was over, people would end up back in the dole queue. Our experience in North Lanarkshire shows that that is not the case among the vast majority of participants. The wage subsidy allows businesses to expand at reduced risk, because it allows them to take people on for six months and then create permanent jobs for them. Even when that has not been possible, the skills, confidence and routine that people have gained from six months of paid employment have left them with much brighter prospects.”
“My local authority, North Lanarkshire council, is doing fantastic work in getting people back to work, and creating new jobs—in the voluntary and public sectors, but mainly in the private sector—through its project “North Lanarkshire’s Working”. A key part of the project is the provision of a 50% wage subsidy for employers who give unemployed people new jobs for six months. It is aimed primarily at young people, although 15% of the funds are earmarked for older people, and it has returned nearly 5,000 people to employment and training. I hope that a version of it will be rolled out throughout the country, so that others can benefit from it.”
“Absolutely—and I think that the jobs guarantee will extend or complement the ability to do that, rather than take it away. However, it will also have a positive impact as a whole. It will create new jobs. As we heard from my right hon. Friend the Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms), employers will have to prove that the jobs would not otherwise be there. It will also be mandatory for them to include a training element that will provide over six months of guaranteed paid work, with all the benefits that that brings. As I said earlier in an intervention, the system is already working. We have seen several examples of that.”
“With the news this week that price comparison sites do not always show customers the cheapest offers because they would not get their share, and given that switching is so crucial to the Government, is it not time that we had a non-commercial Government comparison site?”