HC Deb 08 June 2000 vol 351 cc408-10
4. Ms Rosie Winterton (Doncaster, Central)

What steps he is taking to improve provision for the long-term unemployed aged 25 years and over. [123336]

The Minister for Employment, Welfare to Work and Equal Opportunities (Ms Tessa Jowell)

The new deal for those who are 25-plus has already helped 40,000 long-term unemployed people into jobs. There are now 55,000 fewer people unemployed for 18 months or more than there were in May 1997, but there is more to do. From April next year, we intend to build on the success of the new deal for young people and increase significantly our investment in the new deals for older people facing long-term unemployment by giving them personal advice and high-quality practical assistance to help them to move back into work.

Ms Winterton

Is my right hon. Friend aware that, even though the employment zone in Doncaster has been up and running for only about a month, it has been extremely successful in getting long-term unemployed people over 25 back to work? However, at present those who can benefit from the scheme are selected randomly and I should be grateful for her assurance that, if it continues to be as successful as it is at the moment, the scheme will be extended to all long-term unemployed people in the zone.

Ms Jowell

I thank my hon. Friend for that question and her congratulations on the early success of the employment zone. Random assignment is being used to ensure that the new approach succeeds in getting more of those facing long-term unemployment back into work more quickly. As soon as that success is clearly established, the extra support and help available to some of her constituents will be available generally.

Miss Anne McIntosh (Vale of York)

Does the Minister agree that the new deal—one of the actions taken to support long-term unemployed over-25s—has been a failure, not least in North Yorkshire? Will she join me in recognising that the burdens on employers are disproportionate and increase the cost of employing over-25s?

Ms Jowell

The Opposition have been persistently hostile to the new deal—a programme that, according to independent evaluation, is getting young and older people off benefit and into work. They have always been indifferent to the fate of the long-term unemployed, hostile to the new deal and hostile to our Government's objective of opportunity for all in return for responsibility from all.

Mr. Derek Foster (Bishop Auckland)

It is welcome news indeed that the success of the new deal for 18 to 24-year-olds is drawing out important lessons for beefing up the new deal for over-25s. My right hon. Friend will recall that the recent Education and Employment Select Committee report identified transport as one of the most important factors in enabling people looking for work to get to where the jobs are. What progress is she making—with my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister and with local authorities—to that end?

Ms Jowell

My right hon. Friend raises an important point. Since I appeared before the Select Committee, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and I have launched a further stage of the travelcard for new dealers, offering half-price travel to enable young people to get to work. We are looking to extend the travel-to-interview scheme and the new job grant will begin to remove some of the obstacles that travel presents. We are determined to remove the obstacles to people getting to jobs. We are extending help to disadvantaged people, extending the opportunity of work and taking the practical action that that requires.

Mr. John Bercow (Buckingham)

Given that 81 per cent. of participants in the new deal for over-25s are on the advisory process, 45 per cent. leave the scheme to claim jobseeker's allowance, 9 per cent. go to work-based learning, 3 per cent. go to the training and education option, 25 per cent. go to destinations unknown and, in its two years of operation, only 14 per cent. have managed to achieve sustained employment, why does the right hon. Lady not admit that no Government have ever promised so much, delivered so little and blown their own trumpet with such indecent haste?

Ms Jowell

Well, just tell that to the 40,000 people who have already found work as a result of the new deal for over-25s. We will take no lessons from an Opposition who have always been hostile to helping unemployed people into work and who have tried to thwart everything that the Government have done to extend the advantage and opportunity of work to the unemployed. We are building on the success of the new deal for young people, building on the help with basic skills, numeracy and literacy and preparation for work and removing the practical obstacles that many long-term unemployed people face in getting to work. We are investing six times more in the help that will be available to the long-term unemployed to get them into work. We want the over-25s to get work, and more than 200,000 young people have successfully moved off benefit and into work through the new deal.