argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Compulsory Jobs Guarantee — House of Commons, 2015-02-11
Topic: Labor
Stephen Creswell Timms (Labour, Centre-left): I will in a moment, but I wish to make a little more progress first There are serious causes for concern in the labour market and much more needs to be done to build a recovery that works for everyone. Long-term unemployment remains much too high. The long period—three years—after the general election when there was almost no growth in the economy has left too many people locked out of employment and now left behind even as overall employment is rising. The number of people claiming jobseeker’s allowance for more than two years is 224% of what it was in May 2010, and young people remain at high risk of unemployment. Strikingly, the relative position of young people has become steadily worse since 2010 The most recent figures show that the youth unemployment rate is almost three times the overall rate—it is 2.9 times that rate—and for the past three months, while overall unemployment has been falling, youth unemployment has been going up. The total is now back above three quarters of a million, and we just have to hope that that is not the new trend. Action needs to be taken now to make sure that it is not and that young people are able to share in the benefits of the recovery.
Compulsory Jobs Guarantee — House of Commons, 2015-02-11
Topic: Labor
Stephen Creswell Timms (Labour, Centre-left): Jobs are being created. The question is: who is going to get them? At the moment, the evidence clearly shows that young people disproportionately are not. We know that the future jobs fund worked—I will discuss that in a moment—and we are going to be repeating that approach with this jobs guarantee.
Compulsory Jobs Guarantee — House of Commons, 2015-02-11
Topic: Labor
Stephen Creswell Timms (Labour, Centre-left): I shall be discussing Jobs Growth Wales. I believe the hon. Gentleman is commending it, and I agree with him; it has been a great success and there are certainly lessons to be learned by the rest of the UK from the great success of that programme.
Compulsory Jobs Guarantee — House of Commons, 2015-02-11
Topic: Labor
John Derek Twigg (Labour, Centre-left): My right hon. Friend rightly says that young people, in particular, have been suffering and continue to suffer under this Government. Is not one of the important points about our jobs guarantee the fact that it will give young people experience in work? One of the biggest problems on getting into work is that lack of experience because these people cannot get a job.
Compulsory Jobs Guarantee — House of Commons, 2015-02-11
Topic: Labor
Stephen Creswell Timms (Labour, Centre-left): My hon. Friend is right about that. I have spoken to a large number of people, including young people whose break came through the future jobs fund. They have said that having got six months’ work under their belts, thanks to that initiative, they were then able to look after themselves and apply for jobs, do well and build a career. As he rightly says, young people need that crucial first break and that is what this guarantee will provide Every day of unemployment means hardship, worry and missed opportunity for someone who wants to be working and earning. But the full costs are borne more widely and last much longer. Every day of unemployment is a cost to the taxpayer in unemployment benefit and tax revenue forgone, and a cost to the economy in lost output. It also imposes a cost we can never account for, through the strain it puts on individuals, families and communities. Those costs—in benefit spending, tax revenues, economic output, and individual and social well-being—can reach far into the future, as the scarring effects of unemployment build up. The Acevo commission on youth unemployment found that people who experienced unemployment in their younger years are more likely to suffer not only spells of unemployment in later life, but in work an average wage penalty of more than 15%. That is why it is so troubling that youth unemployment is going back up. It is back up today to more than three-quarters of a million. Young women now unemployed will, a decade from now, be earning on average £1,700 a year less as a result of being unemployed today. Young men now unemployed will be earning £3,300 less a decade from now. Those effects worsen the longer that somebody is out of work Work by Paul Gregg at the university of Bath and Emma Tommony at the university of York suggests that the 200,000 young people who have now been out of work for more than a year are, on average, likely to spend another two years either unemployed or economically inactive between the ages of 28 and 33, and that the men, by the age of 42, will be suffering a wage penalty of more than £7,000 a year. Those are big effects that need to be addressed.
Compulsory Jobs Guarantee — House of Commons, 2015-02-11
Topic: Labor
Deborah Angela Elspeth Marie Abrahams (Labour, Centre-left): My right hon. Friend is making a very powerful case. On the effects of long-term unemployment on young people, he mentioned the impact on income, but will he comment about the impact on mental health, as unemployment can have lifelong effects? Does he agree that it is important to have a joined-up approach between the Department of Health and the Department for Work and Pensions?
Compulsory Jobs Guarantee — House of Commons, 2015-02-11
Topic: Labor
Michael John Gapes (Labour, Centre-left): Will my right hon. Friend confirm that the jobs that we are talking about here, unlike the jobs that many young people have to take at the moment, which are zero hours and exploitative, will be real and proper jobs? They will not be the fake jobs that this coalition Government are producing.
Compulsory Jobs Guarantee — House of Commons, 2015-02-11
Topic: Labor
Stephen Creswell Timms (Labour, Centre-left): I can assure my hon. Friend that these will be jobs for at least 25 hours a week and paid at least at the level of the national minimum wage The persistent unemployment that we still see today could be contributing to a continued cost of living crisis tomorrow, weakening the productivity and the growth potential of our economy as well as undermining efforts to keep social spending under control and to bring down the deficit. We must take urgent and effective action now to tackle the problem What action have we seen from the Government? One of their very first acts on entering office was to abolish the future jobs fund, breaking, incidentally, the promise that the current Home Secretary made during the election campaign. Eventually, the DWP published an evaluation of the future jobs fund and, to the surprise of nobody on the Opposition Benches, it was glowing. It found a net benefit to society—net of all the Exchequer costs—of £7,750 for every single young person who took part. It reckoned that, within three years, half the cost of that intervention came back to the Exchequer because participants stopped claiming benefits and started paying tax and national insurance. It was an exceptionally cost-effective policy By late 2012, when the evaluation was published, it was too late. The future jobs fund had gone. In the time since its abolition, unemployment had risen to more than 2.5 million and youth unemployment had risen to more than 1 million.
Compulsory Jobs Guarantee — House of Commons, 2015-02-11
Topic: Labor
Stephen Creswell Timms (Labour, Centre-left): If the right hon. Gentleman looks at the previous paragraph, he will see that the evaluation said that half the cost of an intervention came back to the Exchequer within a three-year period and that the wholly inadequate replacement for it was the Work programme, which sends more people straight back to the jobcentre after two years than it places in sustained work. It also performs shockingly badly not just in Edinburgh, as we were hearing earlier on, but for those in need of support, such as older workers and people with health problems for whom it has so far recorded failure rates of 87% and 93% respectively. The Work programme has been a failure and we must replace it with something that works better On youth unemployment, the Deputy Prime Minister saw what was going on and had an attack of conscience. He announced the Youth Contract, which the Government promised would lead to 160,000 work subsidies for young jobseekers. It started in April 2012 and it was an utter flop. It was not promoted. That was undoubtedly because DWP Ministers, with the possible exception of the Minister for Pensions, did not have their heart in it. Employers knew nothing about it. Those who did hear of it were confused by it and had nothing to do with it. The Government’s own advisers on poverty and social mobility said that it was not working, so last summer it was unceremoniously shut down early, after it had achieved fewer than 10% of the promised placements that were budgeted for. Ever since then, unemployment among young people has been going up The latest proposal from the Government is time-limiting support for young people without giving them the opportunity to train, after which they will simply be required to do community service. That is not an employment policy, but a policy for punishing the victims of the negligence and ineffectiveness of this Government.
Compulsory Jobs Guarantee — House of Commons, 2015-02-11
Topic: Labor
Stephen Creswell Timms (Labour, Centre-left): Youth unemployment was affected by the worldwide economic crash. What is worrying—even the hon. Gentleman might, in the privacy of his own reflection, be worried about this—is that, at a time when overall unemployment is coming down, youth unemployment is going up. The rate of youth unemployment is nearly three times the overall rate of unemployment now, and that multiple has been going up progressively since the general election.
Compulsory Jobs Guarantee — House of Commons, 2015-02-11
Topic: Labor
Stephen Creswell Timms (Labour, Centre-left): The hon. Gentleman just needs to look at the figures published in January, which show that youth unemployment has been going up for the past three months. The figures that we saw last month cover the period from September to November.
Compulsory Jobs Guarantee — House of Commons, 2015-02-11
Topic: Labor
Stephen Creswell Timms (Labour, Centre-left): Let me make a little more progress, then I will gladly give way again Labour has a real plan to get young people into work and to end the scourge of long-term unemployment. It is a tough plan as we will hold people responsible for accepting work when it is offered, but it is also a fair plan as it gives a young person the opportunity to work, earn a wage and develop skills. Our compulsory jobs guarantee will guarantee a real, paid job, most likely in the private sector—[Interruption.] Members just need to look at what has happened with Jobs Growth Wales, which we heard about a few moments ago. About 80% of the jobs provided on the same wage subsidy model—5,000 companies have been hosting those jobs—are in the private sector. We will guarantee a job for every 18 to 24-year-old who has been looking for work and claiming jobseeker’s allowance for a year, and for every adult aged 25 and over who has been looking for work and claiming for two years.
Compulsory Jobs Guarantee — House of Commons, 2015-02-11
Topic: Labor
Stephen Creswell Timms (Labour, Centre-left): I refer the hon. Gentleman to the national figures. Of course unemployment was hit hard by the worldwide economic crash, but over the past three months in particular there has been a steady, month-by-month increase in youth unemployment at a time when overall unemployment is coming down. I put it to him—I think many Government Members would sympathise with this view—that we need to ensure that young people have a fair chance in the recovery that is now under way of gaining the jobs that are being created. The measure that I am arguing for will allow that to happen.
Compulsory Jobs Guarantee — House of Commons, 2015-02-11
Topic: Labor
Stephen Creswell Timms (Labour, Centre-left): I will make a little more progress and then I will gladly give way again The Government would cover the costs to employers of paying national minimum wage and national insurance for a 25-hour week plus £500 per employee to help businesses with training, admin and set-up costs. In return, employers would be expected to provide training and development for those taking part and show how the jobs were additional—not replacing existing jobs and not leading to somebody else losing their job or seeing a reduction in hours.
Compulsory Jobs Guarantee — House of Commons, 2015-02-11
Topic: Labor
Stephen Creswell Timms (Labour, Centre-left): I can answer that very directly: 5,000 employers are taking part in the Jobs Growth Wales scheme. The Federation of Small Businesses in Wales is a champion. I simply contrast the quote given by the hon. Gentleman with the experience of those on the ground, including the FSB.
Compulsory Jobs Guarantee — House of Commons, 2015-02-11
Topic: Labor
Stephen Creswell Timms (Labour, Centre-left): We will be delivering a guarantee, exactly as we did with the future jobs fund. Anyone can look back at the record of the future jobs fund, where a guarantee was delivered. It will be again. I shall say a little more about how the guarantee would work. Participants would be required, if their employer did not plan to keep them on when the subsidy ended, to pursue intensive job search for a permanent opportunity at the end of the six months. Any jobseeker who refused to take up a job offered under the guarantee would, in the normal way and in line with the long-standing conditions for benefit claims, lose their benefits. That is always the case.
Compulsory Jobs Guarantee — House of Commons, 2015-02-11
Topic: Labor
Stephen Creswell Timms (Labour, Centre-left): Very few. There is the good example of Jaguar Land Rover taking on a group of young people under the future jobs fund, and my understanding is that every single one of those young people was kept on in their job when the wage subsidy ended. The future jobs fund was largely about the charity and public sectors; the guarantee is largely about the private sector, exactly as Jobs Growth Wales has been.
Compulsory Jobs Guarantee — House of Commons, 2015-02-11
Topic: Labor
Stephen Creswell Timms (Labour, Centre-left): Those figures, in my constituency and in his, are far too high. A great deal more needs to be done to enable young people in particular, but long-term unemployed over-25s as well, to share in the benefit of the recovery that is, at last, under way.
Compulsory Jobs Guarantee — House of Commons, 2015-02-11
Topic: Labor
Stephen Pelham Pound (Labour, Centre-left): I am a little distressed at the rather mean-spirited response from some Government Members. Does my right hon. Friend agree that one of the most salient features of the proposal is giving people the experience of work and letting them see what 8 o’clock in the morning looks like and get the idea of being in a job? If the job that they move into in the future is not the same job, so what? The important thing is to get people into the world of work.
Compulsory Jobs Guarantee — House of Commons, 2015-02-11
Topic: Labor
Stephen Creswell Timms (Labour, Centre-left): My hon. Friend is right. I have spoken to many people, including those who went through the future jobs fund, who say exactly that: having the break of getting six months in a job, becoming familiar with the habits and routines of work, and putting that on their CV enabled them to thrive This policy is not just an immediate intervention to limit youth and long-term unemployment; it is an investment in the skills and employability of the British work force, underpinning our productivity, growth potential and fiscal sustainability into the future, but we have been clear that there will be no commitments in our manifesto that require more borrowing. Therefore, we have set out clear plans to fund the policy fairly and prudently In the first year, to provide for the large number of long-term claimants left by this Government’s policies, we would pay for the policy with a repeat of the successful bank bonus tax, which was levied in 2010. That could raise £2 billion. In future years, the costs would be covered by restricting pensions tax relief for the highest paid—those earning more than £150,000 a year—to 20%. The House of Commons Library has estimated that that could raise between £900 million and £1.3 billion a year. That is a fair and prudent way to fund jobs for young people and the long-term unemployed, and to fund the guarantee throughout the next Parliament.
Compulsory Jobs Guarantee — House of Commons, 2015-02-11
Topic: Labor
Stephen Creswell Timms (Labour, Centre-left): As the right hon. Gentleman knows—he has the evaluation in front of him—there was a net benefit to society of £7,500, net of all Exchequer costs, for each person who took part. Is he surprised that youth unemployment has been going up over the past three months, at a time when overall unemployment is coming down, or was that what he expected?
Compulsory Jobs Guarantee — House of Commons, 2015-02-11
Topic: Labor
Stephen Pelham Pound (Labour, Centre-left): I was initially reluctant to interrupt the right hon. Gentleman while the compliments were flowing from the Treasury Bench, but normal service has now been resumed. The major difference between the scheme that he is promulgating and that which we are proposing—I reiterate this for the avoidance of any doubt—is that while the Government are proposing work experience, we are talking about real jobs. The advantage of work experience cannot be denied, but the aim of our proposal is proper, permanent jobs. If they turn out not to be permanent jobs that people start with it, so be it, but the difference is between permanence and work experience.
Compulsory Jobs Guarantee — House of Commons, 2015-02-11
Topic: Labor
Pamela Nash (Labour, Centre-left): In my experience the Opposition do support work experience, and there are many examples of that. Does the Secretary of State realise that there are already local examples of programmes similar to that which we are today proposing nationally? For example, my local authority, North Lanarkshire council, is about to announce that 5,000 people have got into work as a result of a similar project. Permanent private sector jobs have been created as a result of a six-month wage subsidy.
Compulsory Jobs Guarantee — House of Commons, 2015-02-11
Topic: Labor
James Sheridan (Labour, Centre-left): On additional funding for the unemployed—I say this as someone who was unemployed for three years, so I know it is not a nice place to be—would this Government consider channelling any retrospective payments from people who have been found guilty of avoiding tax into fighting youth unemployment?
Compulsory Jobs Guarantee — House of Commons, 2015-02-11
Topic: Labor
Sheila Gilmore (Labour, Centre-left): The Secretary of State always says of the work experience programme that about half of young people who take part in it go into work. His own Department’s evaluation—I do not know whether there has been a more recent one than 2012, but I have not seen it—suggested that following the work experience programme there was a difference between a participant group and a non-participant group, but it was only a small one. Does he not agree that nearly half of those who did not participate in work experience also went into work?
Compulsory Jobs Guarantee — House of Commons, 2015-02-11
Topic: Labor
Stephen Pelham Pound (Labour, Centre-left): Madam Deputy Speaker, there are matters of greater moment before us today. The point has been made In all seriousness, the comments of the Secretary of State at the end of his speech were very well made and measured. He drew our attention to the single most important fact: this debate is not about cold statistics, but about real experience, real people, real lives, real hopes, real dreams and, in some cases, the dashing of those real dreams. However, when he referred to the marvellous blizzard of feel-good statistics it was almost as if Dr Pangloss had ridden out of the pages of "Candide" and tethered his horse to the Treasury Bench to tell us that this is the best of all possible worlds and that everything is well. I, like most people, respect the Secretary of State, but this is not the best of all possible worlds May I pray in aid, as I seldom do, the Office for National Statistics? The labour market statistics from 21 January—not last year, not 2010, but 2015—show that youth unemployment stands at 764,000, which is an increase of 30,000 on the previous quarter, and that long-term unemployment for 18 to 25-year-olds stands at 188,000.
Compulsory Jobs Guarantee — House of Commons, 2015-02-11
Topic: Labor
Sheila Gilmore (Labour, Centre-left): In all the debates on this issue, sweeping statements are made about how Labour Governments have higher unemployment at the end of their term than, it is implied, Tory Governments do. The Tory Government of 1979 to 1997 inherited an unemployment rate of 5.2% and left an unemployment rate of 7.4%, and in 13 out of 18 years unemployment was over 10%. We really should not take lessons from a party that produced those kinds of results during one of its longest periods in government in recent years I was slightly wrong when I intervened on the hon. Member for Selby and Ainsty (Nigel Adams). Unemployment rose slightly between 1997 and 2010, in the midst of a world economic recession—it was 0.4% higher in 2010 than it was in 1997, and that is after a major recession. Between 1945 and 1951 unemployment fell, so I hope we will hear slightly less of that generalisation One of the other generalisations made by the Secretary of State was meant to frighten people outside this place with the notion that Labour creates a situation in which nobody works. He said that under Labour 20% of households had never worked. That is one in five of all households. If someone heard that, they would think it shocking and dreadful, but what he did not say was that 48% of those—nearly half—were students who had never worked because they were students, 14% were carers, 18% were sick or disabled and only 10% were unemployed The number of workless households has fallen slightly under this Government, but it has gone back to where it was in 2008. After the recession, there has finally been a slight fall in the number of households not in work, but, again, many are not in work because of caring responsibilities, because they have children or because they have taken early retirement. We must be realistic about the figures Conservative Members always throw figures at us to show how unemployment has fallen in our constituencies, but they always use the claimant count. The gap between the claimant count and the unemployment rate has been very high under this Government and that is something that we must consider. What is happening to those people who are unemployed but not receiving any benefit? Who are they, what is happening to them and how are they living? Are they getting any of the help that we are so often told about and that they are supposed to be given? I know that many of those people are living on much reduced incomes and many are not getting benefits, either because they have lost them in some way or because they have a partner in what might be only part-time work.