Community Programme (Hansard, 5 March 1985)

§ 13. Mr. Leighton
asked the Secretary of State for Employment what would be the net cost of expanding the community programme to 500,000 places, taking into account benefit savings and tax flows.

§ Mr. Tom King
On the 1984–85 basis, it is estimated that the gross cost of mounting a 500,000 place scheme would be £2,200 million. It is likely that such a significant expansion of the scheme would require changes in the rules and would be likely to result in rather higher net costs than the present estimate of some £2,200 per unemployed person.

§ Mr. Leighton
Does the Secretary of State agree that the deprivations and hardships of unemployment worsen and grow the longer a person is out of work? Does he also agree that the figures for the long-term unemployed are growing alarmingly from month to month, and that the figures that he has announced today show that we could take about 500,000 people off the dole queues for an amount similar to that which the Chancellor suggests he will give away in the next Budget? Should not the Secretary of State therefore insist that the money be spent on expanding the community programme to help the long-term unemployed, instead of giving it away in cuts in income tax?

§ Mr. King
The increase in the number of people in jobs is a result of the Government keeping control of inflation and public expenditure. It is important, when carrying forward any programme in which the Government have a number of measures to help in the short term, that we do not allow the costs to rise out of proportion.

§ Mr. Kenneth Carlisle
Is it not important to improve training aspects in the programme so that those who leave the programme are better qualified to find work?

§ Mr. King
I have announced the proposal to introduce training into the community programme in the coming year. I am encouraged by the first results, which show that people who have been on community programme schemes have three times as good a prospect of going on into work as other long-term unemployed people. That is a tribute to the quality of the programme.