HC Deb 17 February 2000 vol 344 cc1098-100
10. Mr. Ernie Ross (Dundee, West)

What role he plans for intermediary organisations in widening access to the labour market. [109140]

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education and Employment (Ms Margaret Hodge)

The Employment Service works with a wide range of organisations to help unemployed people find jobs. Intermediary organisations can offer valuable opportunities to unemployed people through work experience and by matching the skills that people have to offer with those needed by employers.

Mr. Ross

Does my hon. Friend agree that intermediary organisations have a significant role to play, and that their detailed knowledge will help communities and employers to match people with jobs? Is not that help vital in assisting people to find work?

Ms Hodge

Intermediary organisations have a powerful role to play in matching job opportunities with the skills of individuals. The support for such organisations is evident in the work of the policy action team on jobs and of the new deal taskforce. The Tayside scheme which operates in my hon. Friend's constituency of Dundee, West is already successfully matching young jobseekers to job opportunities. Of the 28 people who started that scheme, 16 have found jobs.

Mr. Ian Bruce (South Dorset)

Has the Minister had the chance to review the Government's three years' experience of running the new deal, under which new deal officials are the intermediaries who help people into work? The statistics show that, in the year before the new deal began, the Government were spectacularly successful in getting people back to work. However, since the new deal was introduced, the same success has not been achieved. Is it not the case that people find jobs more readily for themselves than they do through the new deal? Will the Minister take that into account, in order to save taxpayers' money and get more people back to work?

Ms Hodge

I disagree completely with the hon. Gentleman's contention. The new deal exists to support people who have been unemployed for six months and who therefore require help to get back to work. Our data so far show that, in areas where the new deal operates, we have achieved a return-to-work rate that is 18 per cent. higher than in the rest of the country, and that 6 per cent. more people are finding work. The new deal employment advisers are doing a spectacularly good job in improving peoples' employability. In addition, with the help of the intermediary organisations, we are finding new ways to match people with the growing job opportunities in the labour market.

Mr. Derek Foster (Bishop Auckland)

Is my hon. Friend aware that the Government's supply-side measures on employment, which include the new deal and intermediary agencies, are probably among the best that I have witnessed in 30 years in politics? They are also producing the highest employment rates that we have had for 30 years. However, is my hon. Friend also aware that the employment rate in the south-east is 79 per cent., compared with only 67 per cent. in the north-east? If we are to achieve the one nation that the Government want—I share their ambition in that respect—do we not need a more even spread of prosperity?

Ms Hodge

I very much welcome my right hon. Friend's comments, especially about the interventions in the labour market that have resulted from the new deal. I accept that work remains to be done, especially in the north-east, to ensure that people have more job opportunities. However, may I draw my right hon. Friend's attention to the fact that, according to the statistics announced by my right hon. Friend the Minister for Employment, Welfare to Work and Equal Opportunities earlier this week, the north-east is one of the fastest-growing labour markets in the country,