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Work Programme (Wales)

(Translation) : Yes. I was driving in Sicily, Italy, this summer, and I can guarantee that it is not half as difficult to put up with simultaneous translation as it is to get around places such as Palermo. My point is that it is not a personal failure of the people of Wales that was responsible, although the hon. Gentleman’s point about quality jobs is also important. We want a high-quality economy that pays well and that invests for the future, which is why fixing our economy is a duty for us all, and one of our main duties. It is therefore appropriate for the Committee to discuss the Government’s Work programme today. It is claimed that the programme will tackle the basic problems of our economy and transform the prospects of hundreds of thousands of unemployed people in Wales. I should say immediately that that is ambitious, but appropriately ambitious, and I congratulate the Government—and the previous Government, for that matter—on giving priority to the response to unemployment. I share their aspiration. I have long had an academic interest in the benefits system and the welfare state—since my time at university—and a crucial part of the welfare state is to ensure employment. That is the other side of the coin, is it not? That is my ambition, and the ambition of all of us. I do, however, find basic faults in how the Government are going about things in the Work programme. First and fundamentally, there is the claim that the main problem is changing people’s attitude to work. There is that business about the people of Merthyr having to get on their bikes to look for work. It is clear that some people are like that, but we ought not to generalise in that way, as the tabloids tend to do, and to find fault with those who are unemployed, when so many people in Wales find themselves in that situation. The headline is attractive and includes an element of truth, as do all popular ideas with a superficial attraction. However, I do not need to lecture about that old idea today, or refer Members to the concept, which has been around since the age of Elizabeth I, that a group of people refuse to work and need to be disciplined, and that something should be done about it. Of course, there is such a group; the social security system has a way of dealing with them for their own sake, but what is often lost in the general discussion about getting people back to work is that that is not just for them, but for their children. As someone who has supported the Child Poverty Action Group for many a decade, I can say that it is the children who often lose out in such situations. A third of children in Wales live in poverty, and that is a disgrace to us as a nation. The modern social security system has tried to respond to since the days of Beveridge with basic levels of benefit for people. There is a disciplinary system for those who reject the system and refuse to seek work, but that is not where the emphasis should be. The emphasis should be on people who want to work—who are keen to work—and there is surely enough work that needs to be done there. We are not talking about a weakness of the individual or a personal fault; most people want to work, for the good reasons to which I have alluded. That is one of the basic faults in the Government’s Work programme: it tackles a problem but gives only a partial picture, and we will not make progress if we focus on that. I am completely in favour of encouraging people to take up training; it is a good thing. As a former trainer at a university, I know that it improves people’s skills and attitudes. There is room for that, of course, but I fear that sometimes the current system is not particularly successful. The reality is that many people want work, not training, but work is short. Research shows how the social security system can be improved—a point referred to by the former Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Neath. I will not go down that road today, Mr Havard, but there is a lot that could be done. The other day I was looking at the report of Professor Malcolm Harrington. With your permission, Mr Havard, I will quote some of his key findings in relation to the social security system. He states: [Continued in English] ““Claimants’ interactions with both Jobcentre Plus and Atos…are often impersonal, mechanistic and lack clarity. The Jobcentre Plus decision makers do not in practice make decisions, but instead typically ““rubber stamp”” the advice provided through the Atos assessment…Some conditions are more difficult to assess than others. This appears to be the case with more subjective or fluctuating conditions, such as mental health. other. Communication and feedback between the different agencies and organisations involved is often fragmented and in some cases non existent.”” [Continued in Welsh] Clearly, the Government have a major programme of work to do here and now to respond to such criticism if we are to have a social security system that works. The majority of unemployed people want to get back to work. That brings me to the second fault that I find with the Government’s perception. There is the claim that the jobs are there if people just go looking for them. The right hon. Member for Neath referred to that, and to the need for people to look for work. Of course, there is nothing wrong with people looking for work and getting on their bikes, or whatever. I left the university of Bangor to look for work. If I may share a personal tale with the Committee, I left university to set up as a freelancer. It was the first time that I had claimed unemployment benefit, and in the first week, I went down to Cardiff to look for work. I was not at home to sign on and never got a penny, because I did not know how the system worked. The system at the time did not help me to get on my bike—or in my car—and go down to Cardiff to look for work, and I never got a penny. I am sorry to tell a personal tale, but it is significant. The figures are clear. As the right hon. Member for Neath said, the number of people seeking work, and the number of people who are economically inactive, is high; the number of jobs advertised in jobcentres is low. I will not bore the Committee with the details that came out yesterday, but I will just mention three small examples. In my constituency of Arfon, 436 jobs have been advertised in the past month, and there are more than 1,300 people looking for jobs—a ratio of 3:1. However, the number of people in the economically inactive category is more than 5,500, which means a ratio of 13:1. If we are to get people who are economically inactive into the labour market, we will cause problems for ourselves, in a sense; the jobs are not available. I have two more examples. We are in Wrexham, where 680 jobs are advertised. There are more than 1,800 jobseekers and 7,500 economically inactive people—a ratio of 11:1.