§ 3.58 p.m.
§ THE MINISTER WITHOUT PORTFOLIO (LORD DRUMALBYN)My Lords, I hope that it will be acceptable to your Lordships if I now repeat the Statement that has been made by my honourable friend the Minister of State to the Department of Employment. The Statement is as follows: "With permission, Mr. Speaker, I will make a statement about the future of the public employment service. My right honourable friend has to-day made available in the Vote Office and through the Department's local offices copies of a Report entitled People and Jobs which outlines a programme for modernising the Employment Service. This programme is based on a review my right honourable friend has been making of all the Department's manpower services. We acknowledge the debt we have owed during that review to earlier work on the Employment Service including the comments received from many individuals and organisations on the Consultative Document of May, 1970.
"The Employment Service has important economic and social functions. It has responsibilities for improving the operation of the labour market and for helping people who have difficulty in finding or keeping satisfactory employment. The present service is undoubtedly doing good work in both these respects; but for largely historical reasons it is not able fully and effectively to meet the many and varied needs of employers and workers in a modern labour market.
1024 "Accordingly the Government is making major changes in the way the service is organised and run. These are set out in detail in the Report. The main changes are: First, the Employment Service is to become a departmental agency—that is, a self-managing unit within the Department of Employment. A newly appointed Chief Executive will be directly responsible for the efficient performance of the service.
Second, the staff and offices dealing with placing and other employment work, on the one hand, and administration of unemployment benefit, on the other, will be separated and unemployment benefit will be paid by post.
Third, job self-service and vacancy displays will be extended to all local employment offices, and the staff and training requirements of advisory interviewing work will be thoroughly reviewed.
Fourth, a new network of attractively designed well located employment offices will be developed.
Fifth, plans for re-styling the pro. fessional and executive register and charging employers for the service will be urgently followed up.
Sixth, a new division of responsibility between the Department of Employment and local authorities will be established for giving careers guidance and a placing service for young people.
"As the House will realise, it will not be possible to make all these changes overnight. The Chief Executive, supported by a management team which has been freed from responsibilities for day-to-day work, will be responsible for carrying out the modernisation programme as quickly as practicable in full consultation with staff and other interests concerned.
"The Government is determined to carry through this programme with all urgency, and believes it will provide the positive and dynamic public service which is required as an effective instrument of manpower policies in modern employment conditions."
My Lords, that is the end of the Statement.
§ LORD SHACKLETONMy Lords, we are grateful to the noble Lord for repeating what is an extremely important Statement, and one which really will be very significant in the field of employment. I am grateful, too, for the noble Lord's acknowledgement of the previous work done. These proposals are, as he said, based on the Consultative Document of the previous Government. and I only wish the noble Lord had referred to the part of my right honourable friend Mrs. Barbara Castle, who brought energy to bear on this matter.
Although I have given a broad welcome to this Statement, the fact remains that I am disappointed that the Government have taken so long to make it. I can only conclude that they were so busy with the Industrial Relations Bill that that took priority; and I would ask the noble Lord whether he is aware that, as we pointed out in the debate on industrial relations, the saving of even a single day in placing each person unemployed would in total exceed the number of days lost through strikes. We gave the noble Lord these figures during the debate, and my noble friend also has them. If the noble Lord works it out, he will find that this is so. Therefore the highest priority is necessary; and all the more so while unemployment is running at its present level. I will not enter into a discussion on that now, but the need for a much more highly-geared employment service is very great indeed. I note that the noble Lord said that a new management team is going to look at the setting up of the organisation. I am glad to see that the same concept of semi-hived-off. management by objective style and accountable management style organisation is to be set up. Intending no reflection on the excellent work previously done, I would say that it will need to take on a rather different image; and I am sure the noble Lord will acknowledge that.
May I ask the noble Lord how far the discussions with the staff side have gone? I would have hoped that in the seventeen months that have elapsed since this Government came into office we might have gone a lot further along the road. My main complaint is that these proposals are not as sweeping as ours were. But, as I said, I give the Statement a welcome. I urge the Minister to use his influence 1026 to press on as hard as possible, and possibly even look at some of the devoted work which was done, both in the Department of Employment and Productivity and, indeed, in other Departments, on this subject.
§ LORD BEAUMONT OF WHITLEYMy Lords, I slightly deprecate the rather grudging welcome from the noble Lord, the Leader of the Opposition. The prodigal son was welcomed home, not chided for being late when he came home. It is so rare to get something very good from this Government that we must welcome it indeed. From these Benches I should like to welcome it wholeheartedly, and to say how particularly important think the separation of the administration of unemployment benefit will be, and the payment of unemployment benefit by post, and also the careers guidance for young people. The only question I would ask is, I think, an important one. Would the Minister care to comment on the one really important subject which is not mentioned in this Statement at all? Surely almost the most important job of the Department and of the service will be channelling people into retraining—which is so important, as we on these Benches have been pointing out, at this particular moment, with the large amount of unemployment that exists. There is no mention of this at all in the Statement. I wonder whether the noble would like to repair the omission.
§ LORD COOPER OF STOCKTON HEATHMy Lords, I am sure the noble Lord will not mind me—
§ LORD SHACKLETONIs the noble Lord going to answer?
§ LORD DRUMALBYNI will willingly answer, but I thought it might be convenient if so distinguished a noble Lord as the noble Lord, Lord Cooper, were to speak first. If the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, would prefer it, and thinks it is more in accordance with the usual custom, I will of course answer his points now.
§ LORD SHACKLETONMy Lords, I am bound to say that I am in a difficulty and I apologise to the House that I should be at a Committee of the House; but it is customary, I think, to answer the first two speeches before the points get lost. I fully agree with the noble 1027 Lord's comments about the importance of any contribution which will come from my noble friend.
§ LORD DRUMALBYNThen perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Cooper, will allow me to reply now: I shall listen to his contribution later. My Lords, I am very grateful for the way in which this Statement has been received, and for the recognition of its importance. I fully recognise this is an urgent matter. On the other hand, I think I am bound to point out that, in the nature of the case, the whole body of these proposals will take some time to work out. But I can assure the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, that, as I have said, the Government are determined to proceed with all possible haste in these matters. I am sorry if he thinks that the acknowledgement in the Statement was in any way grudging. I am not sure that it is always necessary to refer to personalities in these matters, but I thought the acknowledgement was—
§ LORD SHACKLETONBetter than most.
§ LORD DRUMALBYN—better than most.
The noble Lord asked about the discussions with the staff side. Of course, these mainly relate to the matters affecting the employment of staff, and these will arise mainly in the sector dealing with separation. In the nature of the case, this is bound to proceed slowly. So far as the general question of the staff's duties is concerned, the management has been set a goal for its proposals: that they should be completed by October of next year; and that will, I hope, give adequate opportunity for discussions with the staff side. I am also glad that the noble Lord welcomed the management team. It is, I think, a good team. It is a small one, I believe, and it has representatives from outside the Department as well as from inside.
I am also grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont, for his remarks. He asked about channelling people into retraining. I fully agree with him on the importance of this work, and this is something that has not been overlooked in any way. The occupational guidance service which was set up during the term of office of the Party opposite is already 1028 dealing with something like 45, 000 people a year, and it is expected that this number will increase very considerably. The advice given to those who come to the employment board will certainly include advice on the retraining facilities that are available. As the noble Lord will understand, the actual training does not come immediately into this Statement, but advice about what is existing does.
LORD COOPER or STOCKTON HEATHMy Lords, while we may agree with the noble Lord that the method of payment, the method of training and the method of placing is very important, I think we ought to keep a sense of proportion about this matter. In a situation where there are almost a million unemployed people we are at this stage almost in the realm of theory. If any message at all were to go from this House to the other place, I hope that it would be a message about the urgent need to do everything possible to relax the overall economy, so that we can get the size of this great army of unemployed labour down to proportions where the proposals may have some meaning.
§ LORD DRUMALBYNMy Lords, I fully take the noble Lord's point, but I think that in this regard Lord Shackleton's point was also relevant, and the more quickly we can get people into the jobs available as they arise the better. The whole object of this exercise is to get the needs of the employers, for jobs to be filled, and those of the workers, to find jobs, satisfied as efficiently and as quickly as possible.
§ LORD STONHAMMy Lords, it would obviously be a great convenience if the payment of unemployment benefits were made by post. But what is going to happen in the event of disputes as to the entitlement amounts? These will be quite numerous, and I wonder whether the noble Lord has any specific arrangements in mind for dealing with this matter.
§ LORD DRUMALBYNMy Lords, the noble Lord says that these arrangements will be quite new. They have been in operation already in the Greater London area and I am not aware of any particular difficulty arising through mistakes in payments. But I will make inquiries and let the noble Lord know.
§ LORD DELACOURT-SMITHMy Lords, I endorse what was said by my noble friend Lord Cooper of Stockton Heath and I agree with him that one must see this matter in the perspective of the present unemployment situation. I am also mindful of the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont of Whitley. Nevertheless I am bound to ask the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, whether he would not agree, after this delay of 17 months, that the proposals which were put forward on a consultative basis by the former Government have not been developed or expanded during this lapse of time; that rather, so far as one can judge from the Statement made, they have been substantially diminished? Would he not agree, for example, that the proposal for a network of manpower centres, which was a feature of the Consultative Document, does not have a place in the present proposals? I do not think that the new employment offices to which the noble Lord referred are intended to cover the ground of the manpower centres. Would he not further agree that these proposals appear likely to be giving, over a fairly wide field of employment, a further lease of life to fee-paying agencies? I take the point, of course, that in respect of professional persons the Department is to seek to take over this work; hut, as I understand it, in the remaining fields of industry the fee-paying agencies, where they exist at the moment, will have a further lease of life. Lastly, would the noble Lord say whether it is intended to make the careers guidance work mandatory on local authorities?
§ LORD DRUMALBYNMy Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Delacourt-Smith, asked about the comparison between what is proposed here, what is to be brought into operation, and what was proposed by the Labour Government. I think, my Lords, that to a large extent it is a matter of nomenclature. What was to be done by the manpower centres is, I understand already being worked out. For example, there is the computer service for vacancies circulation in London; the experiment that has been made in Birmingham, and the extension of that experiment to some ten cities in the coming year. There are also the proposals for manpower intelligence which will be brought within the duties of the manager of each employ 1030 ment exchange. It will be for the management team to decide how best to coordinate those. So far as the question of a fresh lease of life to fee-paying agencies is concerned, I must make clear that the Government do not envisage any kind of monopoly of the services in this area. Nor would it be posible for them to give the variety of services that are required, both by employers and also by employees, if they did envisage a monopoly. My Lords, the last question which the noble Lord asked was about the new employment service and whether it would be mandatory. This is a matter which my right honourable friend is going to discuss with the local authority associations. He has not yet made up his mind about it.
§ 4.18 p.m.
§ LORD DOUGLASS OF CLEVELANDMy Lords, I am very concerned about this problem because I am probably one of the few who have "signed on the dole" for years and wondered why. I have discovered, in the years that have passed by, that unless there is sufficient investment inside industry there is no hope at all of curing the unemployment problem. I have discovered that, following the investment, following the provision of the necessary money, you must have the necessary skilled employees. That brings me to the question: is the present employment exchange, which we used to call the unemployment exchange, sufficiently able to obtain the necessary skilled labour which would warrant the necessary investment in industry? The unskilled labour in any country—make no mistake about this, my Lords—is completely dependent on two things: first, money, and secondly, skilled labour. It seems to me that the question posed to the House is whether independent selective employment agencies can supply the skilled labour better than State-controlled employment agencies. I do not know the answer to that. If the State can supply the skilled labour, let it say so. If the independent agencies can supply the skilled labour, let it not be denied. Because we have to decide which of these can supply the skilled labour before we get the investment. If we then decide how to get investment in this country. we shall resolve a lot of problems. I have heard many arguments lately about whether we should have foreign capital in this country, and 1031 whether we should have the highest concentration of capital inside the country or whether we should not. I think that we must attract the capital inside the country before ultimately deciding what is to be done about labour. Having got the capital, we must then get the skilled labour. If we are to exclude the independent people who really got the skilled labour inside this country—
§ LORD DOUGLASS OF CLEVELANDMy Lords, I will give way for a reply.
§ LORD DRUMALBYNMy Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord. I began to think that perhaps he was going a little further than we generally go in putting a point after a Statement had been made. Perhaps I could reply simply in this way. In this Statement we are not really concerned with the actual supply of trained labour; we are concerned with the means of bringing together the employer, whoever he may be, and the possessor of that skilled labour. The view that I expressed in response to a question asked earlier was that in discharging this task we need to call upon all available agencies. The employer may himself prefer to advertise directly for his requirements; he may prefer to do so through an employment agency, or he may prefer to go to the employment exchange. The object of these proposals is to encourage him to prefer to go to the employment exchange, and to put down his requirements and notify his vacancies there. The difficulty in the past has been that employers have not been notifying as many of their vacancies as we should like. We hope that in future it will be possiable for them to double the number of vacancies that they notify.
LORD DOUGLASS Or CLEVELANDMy Lords, I accept that argument. I was not aware that I was arguing against it. We must encourage people to go to the labour exchange; but the fact is that they have been encouraged by events to go elsewhere. Is the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, suggesting that we ought to exclude all the outside agencies who bring skilled labour into contact with the money which is necessary for the development of industry? His argument must surely be—and I am sure this is the view on this 1032 side—that if we cannot bring together the skilled labour and the necessary investment there is no hope for the future. Surely what the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, is arguing now is that we should encourage all vacancy notifications to come within a certain ambit.
§ LORD DOUGLASS OF CLEVELANDMy Lords, may I ask a question? I must at least be allowed to ask a question. Is it suggested that if employers who want skilled labour make a different approach from the State-controlled one suggested by Lord Drumalbyn—if they go to the independent people who bring together investment and labour—this is wrong?
§ LORD DRUMALBYNNo, my Lords; I have tried to suggest the contrary. We want to use all available agencies possible in order to match those offering jobs with those seeking jobs. What I said was that we think that the employment exchanges, after 60 years in more or less the same pattern, could he modernised in such a way as to attract a greater share of the employers to notify vacancies to them, so that they could place a greater proportion of the employees in work.
§ LORD DOUGLASS OF CLEVELANDMy Lords, may I ask a further question? Is the noble Lord advocating the eradication of all the employment agencies except the State-controlled ones? It seems to me that that is what this argument leads to.
§ LORD DRUMALBYNNo, my Lords. I was merely saying that we do not think the employment exchanges do as large a share of the work as they could do.
§ LORD SLATERMy Lords, after listening to the various contributions that have been made, am I to assume from the Statement that all the employment exchanges are to come within the ambit of the main employment exchange? Is that to be the position? Or will there be the employment exchanges with this proposal additional to them? The noble Lord said that the Government want other sectors who may he able to help. I have recently seen on Tyne-Tees Television advertisements of certain vacancies in Newcastle and the surrounding area. This is a means of advertisement which could be of some assistance: and if more of this were done it might help.
§ LORD DRUMALBYNMy Lords, I hope I have made it clear—I have endeavoured to do so—that there are three main ways of recruitment. One is by the employer advertising directly: the other, is by going to private exchanges, and the third is by using the employment exchange. We do not intend to cut off any of those three sources. We want to improve the last.
§ LORD DOUGLASS OF CLEVELANDMy Lords, before the noble Lord sits down—
§ LORD DOUGLASS OF CLEVELANDMy Lords, I am going to insist.
§ LORD WINDLESHAMMy Lords, if I may speak for just a moment, there is a great deal of additional Business on the Order Paper. The noble Lord has already spoken—
§ LORD DOUGLASS OF CLEVELANDMy Lords—
§ LORD DOUGLASS OF CLEVELANDMy Lords, I am still on the original question. I am in order. I am asking the question now. The noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, said that not enough work is going to the labour exchange, which is where it should be going. I am asking whether there is a reason for this. I am asking whether the labour exchanges are sufficiently capable of dealing with this problem. If they are, does the problem of the outside agencies arise? But this problem does arise; and it increases unemployment.
§ LORD DOUGLASS OF CLEVELANDMy Lords, I have a right to ask this question. I do not care how many agencies we have so long as they help to decrease unemployment. I am going to follow that particular line.
§ LORD DRUMALBYNMy Lords, I hope the noble Lord will be satisfied with the answers I have given because I do not see how I can add to them. I am sure that he will read this paper, People and Jobs, and then perhaps we could discuss the matter further.
§ LORD DOUGLASS OF CLEVELANDMy Lords, I conclude by saying that, with a million unemployed, I am not at all sure that any agencies are satisfactory. But I shall pursue this question at a future date.