§ 8. Mr. BaldryTo ask the Secretary of State for Employment if he will make a statement on the future of the jobcentre network.
§ The Minister of State, Department of Employment (Mr. John Cope)As with any other Government activity, the jobcentres are kept under continuous review.
§ Mr. BaldryGiven not only the continuing falls in unemployment levels but the increase in some parts of the country in skill shortages, is it not time to think again about the role of the jobcentres, so that they become skills shops as well, where people can identify the skills that are needed in the local labour market and, equally important, where they can go to obtain training for those skills? Is it not also time to think about tying jobcentres more effectively into the training access points initiative and to think of ways in which new technology can better take the jobcentre network into the 21st century?
§ Mr. CopeYes, we are doing all that. We are currently implementing a new programme called SUPERVACS, which is a computer-based vacancy system which is now fully operational in the north-west and is being extended elsewhere. [Interruption.] We are introducing direct public access systems as well, which have been piloted in Glasgow and will be extended to the Docklands and Coventry, and we are also following up the suggestions that my hon. Friend made about skills.
§ Mr. SpeakerOrder. I ask the House not to carry on private conversations, and certainly not to shout from a sedentary position when answers are being given.
§ Mr. VazDoes the Minister accept that, rather than contracting the jobcentre network, the Government should be expanding it, specifically for those who live in the outer areas of cities? Does he not accept that the prohibitive costs of transport prevent many people from travelling into inner-city areas to use the facilities offered by jobcentres? Will he give sympathetic consideration to the creation of mobile jobcentres to enable services to go to the outer areas and so ensure that the people who live there are treated in exactly the same way as those in the inner-city areas?
§ Mr. CopeYes, indeed, but it is part of the point of the computerised vacancy and direct access systems to which I referred that they make information available in public libraries and so on. The hon. gentleman asked about mobile jobcentres. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State is to launch one next week.
§ Mr. MarlowIn view of the growing and justifiable anger and resentment at the large number of people in prosperous parts of the country who refuse to take available work, will my right hon. Friend change the availability for work rule and bring in instead a looking for work rule?