HC Deb 28 January 2002 vol 379 cc6-8
3. Ms Karen Buck (Regent's Park and Kensington, North)

What assessment he has made of the impact of welfare-to-work policies in London. [28139]

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Malcolm Wicks)

In London, more than 70,000 people have been helped into work through our new deal programmes, including 42,000 young Londoners. In addition, more than 10,000 more have moved into work in some of the most deprived areas through employment zones and action teams for jobs. Altogether, our policies have helped to reduce unemployment in London by more than 30 per cent. since 1997 and long-term unemployment has fallen by nearly 60 per cent.

Ms Buck

Fraud is very important, but it is also important that those people who are entitled to benefits get the help that they need when they require it. It is of some concern to me that despite the national success of the working families tax credit in topping up the incomes of low-income families, Londoners are less likely to receive that benefit. In particular, low-income single parents are half as likely to receive working families tax credit as people in the country as a whole. Will the Government commit themselves to a research project to establish why we have these variations, and to find out how much of it is due to a lack of awareness and how much is due to structural problems that can be removed to make sure that Londoners get the help that they require?

Malcolm Wicks

I know of my hon. Friend's great interest in this matter in her constituency and London as a whole. I shall go through these matters with her to see whether there is a need for research. Across the country—including in London—the working families tax credit has been of enormous help to two and one-parent families. In London alone, some 95,000 families have benefited from the working families tax credit.

In addition, 70,000 people in London have benefited from the national minimum wage. That demonstrates that along with making work possible for Londoners, and everyone else in the country, we also need to make work pay.

Mr. David Heath (Somerton and Frome)

Is not the hon. Member for Regent's Park and Kensington, North (Ms Buck) right to say that the key to the success of these policies is access? Given that the take-up of working families tax credit in her constituency and others in London is extremely low, will the Minister tell us what will happen when working families tax credit migrates to child tax credit in 2003? How will those who do not have bank accounts receive their credit if the universal bank is not up and running by then? Secondly, with 40,000 of his staff on strike today—a fact dismissed by the Secretary of State—is it not time that the Government and the management spoke constructively to their staff, to enable them to provide the advice that they should be providing to those who need it?

Malcolm Wicks

There was a lot there in terms of quantity, but the hon. Gentleman greatly inflates the number of people on strike. The strike has not been a success, and we urge people to return to work to make a success of what is already a successful project—Jobcentre Plus. We talked about fraud earlier, and just as we need to bear down on fraud—as we are doing—we need to enable people to claim the benefits to which they are entitled, in a variety of ways. We are pleased by the success of working families tax credit, and the new child tax credit will also be a success, but we will look at any sensible ideas for increasing take-up.

Mr. Ian Davidson (Glasgow, Pollok)

Does the Minister accept that part of the welfare-to-work programme involves an incentive, and that in London and other cities, such as Glasgow, where rent and council tax levels are higher, those in low-paid jobs do not have so much incentive to go into work because they lose their council tax and rent rebates when they do so? Would the Minister be prepared to consider the pilot project suggested by Glasgow city council to waive the loss of rent and rate rebates for a period for people going into work? If that project were successful, and if it were adopted elsewhere, it would undoubtedly assist people in London and Glasgow.

Malcolm Wicks

I recognise that we need to do all that we can to inform people about what will happen when they go off benefit full-time and go back into work. Many people are, understandably, ignorant about those effects. That is why, in Jobcentres and Jobcentres Plus, we do a "better-off calculation", to demonstrate to people exactly how much better off they will be in work. Many are pleasantly surprised at the result. That is because people still receive housing benefit when doing a low-paid job. They are also entitled to the minimum wage, and tax credits bite in with good effect.

Mr. James Clappison (Hertsmere)

Is not the Minister concerned that so few of those leaving the new deal in London are being taken on by central Government Departments? Is he not also concerned that, since March last year, when the Select Committee said that it was "extremely disappointed" by the failure of Departments to recruit more people from the new deal—and when the Minister's own Department promised to set up special programmes to encourage Departments to recruit more from it—the number being recruited by central Government has fallen still further? A few moments ago, the Secretary of State said that it was important for the different arms of government to work together. Is it not clear that, when it comes to the new deal, they are not? The Government are snubbing their own policies, and other Departments are snubbing the policies of his Department.

Malcolm Wicks

The hon. Gentleman talks from a position of some principle. That principle is that he is against the new deal. The fact is that we have enabled young people to enter different forms of employment in the public sector and in the private sector, and also to take routes into training and education. What the House needs to understand—and what the Opposition do not wish to understand—is that the new deal has been a great success in enabling people in London and elsewhere to get into the world of work.