Compulsory Jobs Guarantee — House of Commons, 2015-02-11
Topic: Labor
Stephen Pelham Pound (Labour, Centre-left): I hear a sedentary intervention from down the Thames valley. The figure for long-term unemployment, which is made up of those who have been on JSA for more than two years, has increased since May 2010 by—I pause to let the number sink in—224%. Let us not try to fool ourselves that everything is wonderful out there. Let us accept, however, that there is good will on both sides. We all want to see people in work; it is the mechanism by which we achieve it that divides us. In some ways, the quintessence of the major political argument is being expressed here today—it is about the role of the state and the duty of the individual The hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart) rightly referred to the sanctions regime. One of the important things about a realistic, modern, pragmatic Labour party is that we are not in the position of saying that there will be no sanctions. We are maintaining the present level, just as Beveridge—a great man, if a deluded Liberal at the time—envisaged when he proposed the blueprint for what, in effect, became our modern welfare state. We are talking about a combined approach. We are saying to long-term unemployed young people in particular, "We have not forgotten you." We will not simply place them in a temporary job and expect them to use it to access the labour market, although some may do so, but we will find them a real job Over the years, we have tried over and over again to achieve that. The Manpower Services Commission schemes of the 1980s were initially quite successful, but were ultimately affected by the major economic picture. I hope that, as part of the new scheme, the Labour party will be talking about placements in football and sports clubs, because those were one of the successes The Labour party—the party to which I have dedicated myself all my adult life—has done many marvellous things, but seldom have I heard an example of it riding to the rescue of the reputation of bankers. Bankers have been having a difficult time lately. Hedge fund operators are salving their consciences by shovelling great barrowloads of cash to Black and White balls, and leasing out their estates to shoot peasants—I mean pheasants—and partridge. If bankers pay an impost of a bank bonus, they will do something to reclaim their battered reputation. How good it will be for those with silk hats, swaggering down Threadneedle street and throwing their cigars over their shoulders, to realise that they are part of the solution. They have been part of the problem for far too long We are currently in an extraordinary period in which bankers are about to fill their boots when it comes to bonuses. A famous recruitment firm, Phaidon International, estimates that this year bankers’ bonuses could be up by 25% or 35%. Bankers’ bonuses are on the increase, but I think those bankers want to help the country more and to help the unemployed; I think there is good even in bankers. Let us support the Labour motion this afternoon, not just for the unemployed or the youth unemployed, but for the battered, tattered, shattered reputation of Britain’s bankers. Let them come back from their offshore tax havens and from Davos, and let them say, "We are part of society; we are prepared to pay." This modest tax on bankers’ bonuses will go a long way to make this country a better, more decent and productive place for all of us, and hopefully a place in which we will talk about unemployment in the past tense.