Restart (Hansard, 17 January 1989)

§ 6. Mr. Ian Bruce
To ask the Secretry of State for Employment if he will make a statement on the progress of the restart programme.

§ The Parliamentary under-Secretary of State for Employment (Mr. Patrick Nicholls)
Since July 1986, more than 5 million interviews have been carried out under the restart programme, of which just under 90 per cent. have resulted in an offer of positive help being made. The restart programme now offers interviews at six-monthly intervals to everyone who has been out of work for six months or more. In addition, certain clients are now offered follow-up interviews in order to provide further guidance and support. Since September 1988, the programme has delivered the Government's guarantee to people aged between 18 and 24 who have been unemployed for between six and 12 months of the offer of a place on employment training, in a job club or on the enterprise allowance scheme.

§ Mr. Bruce
I thank my hon. Friend for that excellent reply and report. I am sure that all hon. Members will welcome the fact that so many people are being helped back into employment. Can my hon. Friend tell us the proportion of people going into employment training from a restart interview and the number going into direct employment from the interview? Does he have any figures on those matters?

§ Mr. Nicholls
I am grateful to my hon. Friend. He is entirely right. The purpose of restart interviews is to try to help long-term unemployed people to find a job or some other suitable opportunity instead of simply leaving them to languish out there. My hon. Friend asks about referrals to employment training. About 130,000 people have been referred since ET started in September 1988.

§ Mr. Haynes
Is the Minister aware that the Government's pit closure programme has encouraged people who worked in the industry for I know not how many years to accept redundancy? Now they are being told that they will have to go on to the restart programme. After all this time and after promises were made when redundancy was accepted, they are now told that if they do not sign on for restart they will have their benefit cut. The Minister should be ashamed of himself.

§ Mr. Nicholls
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for making his point so clearly. The terms and conditions of deals worked out with the miners are more properly matters for my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Energy. In general terms, it has always been the position that anybody signing on and claiming benefit has to be available for work. That is a general rule.

§ Mrs. Maureen Hicks
In testifying to the fantastic reduction in the number of unemployed in the west midlands—one of the best figures in the country and due in large measure to the restart programme—may I ask my hon. Friend whether he agrees that the main problem now 144 is no so much one of finding jobs for the unemployed, because vacancies exist, but unfortunately in recognising that many of the unemployed are unemployable? Employers with vacancies are finding that prospective employees do not come up to the calibre that is required, and when they are taken on for employment training many of them lack basic numeracy and literacy skills.

§ Mr. Nicholls
All that I have seen during my relatively short time in this job leads me to the conclusion that very few people are unemployable. I accept, however, that many people need much care and help to get themselves back into the labour market, and the overwhelming majority of unemployed people want to take advantage of that. We are specifically spending about £1.5 billion on employment training so that we do not leave people to languish without the skills that they might need but help them to get back into the labour market.

§ Mr. Tony Lloyd
Why was the Minister so coy in responding to his hon. Friend the Member for Dorset, South (Mr. Bruce) about the number of people helped back into full-time permanent employment? Perhaps I can help him. Will he confirm that surveys show that perhaps only 1 per cent. of people in the restart scheme are going into full-time permanent employment? Given that the bulk of restarts lead people into the now discredited ET schemes, will the Minister tell the House when the Government will seriously begin the process of offering the long-term unemployed adequate skills training so that they can get back into real work?

§ Mr. Nicholls
I have been accused of many things at the Dispatch Box, but coyness has never been one of them. The whole point of a restart interview is to look at people who are either long-term unemployed or heading that way and to try to make some positive offer. In some cases, that could lead to a job right away but all sorts of other disposals can also help. It may be a question of referring people to job clubs, about 440,000 have been submitted to such clubs. It might be a question of referring people to the enterprise allowance scheme; and there have been about 200,000 referrals there. People may also be submitted for jobs; about 460,000 have been so submitted.
There is a whole range of options that long-term unemployed people need to help them. In saying that we cannot guarantee people a full-time job right away, the hon. Gentleman is like other members of his party—he is still living in the 1950s.