HC Deb 24 July 1997 vol 298 cc1043-4
21. Mrs. Brinton

To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment if he will make a statement on the introduction of his proposals for providing employment for young and long-term unemployed people. [8617]

Mr. Andrew Smith

The new deal for 18 to 24-year-olds will begin in a number of "pathfinder areas" in Britain in January next year, and will be introduced nationally next April. The help for people aged 25 or over who have been unemployed for at least two years will start in June 1998.

Mrs. Brinton

I thank my right hon. Friend for his reply. Is he aware that yesterday, in my constituency of Peterborough, I presented the new deal to the chamber of commerce, where it was most warmly welcomed? Is he also aware that Shackleton Associates, also in my constituency, is already operating a highly successful pilot scheme? Does my right hon. Friend agree that the Labour party, not the Conservative party, is now the party of business and enterprise?

Mr. Smith

Yes, indeed. My hon. Friend is right to draw attention to the positive reception that our new deal proposals are receiving from the business community, just as they are from the people of this country as a whole. If this country is to become, as it should, a one-nation Britain, that requires a whole-nation effort. [Laughter.] Conservative Members who are laughing should join that effort and become part of the solution, rather than part of the problem, which is what their party's Administration was.

Mrs. May

Is the right hon. Gentleman aware of the report by the Policy Studies Institute that was mentioned in the press some days ago? It said that the previous Government's proposals for getting unemployed people into work had been extremely successful, especially what I think was called the workfare proposal, whereby people went into work for a number of weeks while remaining on benefit? At the end of the period, that had achieved a far higher percentage of unemployed people getting permanent jobs than had many other such schemes.

The report also said that the Government's new deal welfare-to-work proposals were likely to be expensive and unnecessary, and would not be as successful as those of the previous Government. What percentage of unemployed people does the Minister expect to achieve permanent jobs at the end of their time on a welfare-to-work scheme?

Mr. Smith

I think that the hon. Lady has misnamed the study referred to in the report. If I recall correctly, the report praised the work trial initiative, which enabled long-term unemployed people to have trial placements with employers while still in receipt of benefit, so that their fitness for employment, and the employers' keenness to take them on, could be assessed. That had a measure of success and, as I have been saying in response to my hon. Friends, I would see us, through the new deal, building on what works well in the community at present. The range of choices that will be made available, coupled with the incentives to employers both for 18 to 24-year-olds and for the long-term unemployed who are 25 or older, means that the new deal will surely be even more successful than the initiative that the hon. Lady mentioned.