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Employment

With permission, Mr. Speaker, I would like to make a statement on employment. Unemployment began rising in January, as this country, like so many others, began to feel the shockwaves of the credit crunch rippling out from the banking system in the United States. Each and every job lost is a personal tragedy. Our goal is to ensure that newly unemployed people do not fall out of touch with the labour market, and we will do everything we can to bring those who have been out of a job for some time back closer to the world of work. So, we will continue to reform the welfare state to help people back into work now and to prepare them for the upturn. Britain starts from a strong position. The number of people in work reached its highest ever level this summer—29.5 million; earlier this year, we experienced the lowest claimant unemployment level since the 1970s; and there are more than 500,000 vacancies in the economy. By contrast, in the 1980s and 1990s, claimant unemployment twice hit 3 million, and between 1979 and 1997 the number of people on incapacity benefits trebled to more than 2.5 million. We all know the human cost that lies behind those figures: communities were scarred, and still carry those scars today; and whole families were left without work, not just for years, but for generations. For the first time since 1945, the global economy is predicted to shrink next year. No country can be immune, but all Governments have the same goal: to make the downturn as shallow and as short as possible. If this had been done in the 1990s, the recession then would have been less costly to communities, less costly for individuals and less costly for the economy as a whole. Yesterday, my right hon. Friend the Chancellor set out details of a £20 billion fiscal stimulus package to support our economy—it is the right action to reduce, as far as possible, the human and financial cost of the downturn. The money means help for small business, a timely boost to the economy and capital projects to maintain employment. The money also means a significant boost for older people in this country; we are putting in place a basic state pension of £95.25 and an increase to the guaranteed credit, which will ensure that no pensioner need live on less than £130 a week. My right hon. Friend said yesterday that he wants pensioners to benefit as quickly as possible. As we are not able to increase the pension and pension credit rates before April, we therefore announced that an additional £60 payment will be made to 15 million people from January. That is in addition to the £10 Christmas bonus, which will be paid as normal. The measures represent a significant increase in Government support for older people, which will really make a difference to pensioners, particularly if prices fall as expected next year. The Chancellor also announced extra help for my Department next year. That £1.3 billion package will ensure that we can respond to the higher number of people claiming benefits. Over the past decade, we have reformed the welfare state to match more support with more responsibility. Yesterday's announcement will enable us to continue our reform of welfare, to offer real help to people in these tough times. We will be able to maintain the service we provide, and strengthen our response in three ways. First, we need to make the right support and conditionality available. We need to ensure that Jobcentre Plus can deliver as good a service as it does today to more people tomorrow. In the past, Governments have cut back on support and conditionality as the claimant count has risen. We want to do the opposite, and do more to help people, rather than less. Over the past 10 years, we have modernised our employment services almost beyond recognition. People used to get benefits from one agency and job advice from another—now someone cannot sign on without looking for work. Jobcentre Plus takes 80,000 calls a week, and its website gets 350,000 visits a day. The National Audit Office reports that"““the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development found significant improvements in unemployment levels in the United Kingdom…related closely to the adoption of active job-seeking measures””." Therefore, our first priority remains to ensure that everyone continues to receive this top quality service, and I am pleased to say that the system is coping well. Our target for jobseeker's allowance is to process all new claims within 11½ days—in the year to date, we are processing them within an average of 10. For our crisis loans, demand has gone up, but processing times continue to fall, and budgeting loans are being dealt with 20 per cent. quicker than their target time. But with higher levels of claimant count, we need further investment. The extra money that the Chancellor announced yesterday will ensure that we are able to maintain and expand our offer during a time of increased pressure on our services—help with CV-writing and job search, and time with personal advisers to develop action plans; to identify skills needs; and to get support with training, child care and interview techniques. We need to ensure we have the right capacity. In the last spending round the Department reduced its staffing by 31,000 and has increased productivity overall by 12 per cent., as confirmed by the National Audit Office. We have saved money in back office processing and used that to invest in the front line. So there are now 1,500 more personal advisers in Jobcentre Plus than there were two years ago. But we need to recognise that in the current economic circumstances we need to invest more in our front-line services, so we are today announcing a moratorium on Jobcentre Plus closures, and I can also confirm that the pre-Budget report will mean 6,000 more front-line staff in place in Jobcentre Plus next year. Secondly, we need to ensure that we reach people facing redundancy as early as possible. The Insolvency Service now informs Jobcentre Plus immediately of redundancy notifications it receives. We had already doubled the funding for our rapid response service. Yesterday, the money available was doubled again, allowing us to help all companies facing 20 or more redundancies. That service will bring people swift access to the £100 million that the Department for Work and Pensions and the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills announced last month to help people retrain and develop their skills, so that they can move quickly back into sustainable work, like the workers at Butler and Tanner in Frome, Somerset, nearly 300 of whom lost their job when the printers closed in April this year. With the help of the rapid response service, it is estimated that 90 per cent. have now found new jobs. We know that local employment partnerships, which help match the unemployed to employers looking to hire, have been successful. Already more than 70,000 of our most disadvantaged customers have started work under the initiative. Now we will be able to extend that to include those who are newly redundant, too. We have also announced the national employment partnership. This group will be chaired by the Prime Minister and will include the heads of business and public sector bodies, with a remit to ensure that employers work with the Government to enable people facing redundancy to be moved as quickly as possible into new jobs. Thirdly, over the past 10 years, we have also opened up our service to private and voluntary sector providers. As David Freud recognised, that allows us to get the best of both worlds with Jobcentre Plus providing the core support and processing, and specialist providers helping those who find it hardest to get back into work. Despite opposition to them from some parts of this House, the new deals have been successful, but they need to become more personal to the individual rather than being based on age, so we are introducing the flexible new deal. Some concerns have been expressed about the viability of these contracts in new economic circumstances. I am glad to report that we have compliant bids from 24 organisations and we have a minimum of four organisations competing for each of the contracts on offer. But it is important that we do invest more in the flexible new deal, both to give providers confidence but also to make sure that this time people who are further from the labour market are not abandoned. Some people say that there is no point helping people furthest from the labour market in the current circumstances. We say the opposite: when times are harder, we should be giving people more help, not less. This Government are taking action, including action on the economy and action to help people face the effects of the global crisis. That is the right thing to do for this country, for individuals and for jobs. The £1.3 billion will help those who are newly facing redundancy and those who have been out of work for longer: more front-line staff, and more money for our private and voluntary providers, so that we can maintain our active regime. For those who have been out of work for some time, we will maintain and accelerate our overhaul of the welfare system to do everything we can to bring them back closer to the world of work. We will give more help now, to prevent individual tragedies today from becoming the scars on communities tomorrow. I commend this statement to the House.