PARLIAMENTARY DEBATE
Budget 2024: Unemployment - 16 December 2024 (Commons/Commons Chamber)

The Budget made the choices needed to fix the foundations of our economy. Taking those into account, the Office for Budget Responsibility forecasts that unemployment will fall to 4.1% next year and remain low until 2029. We are taking action to support jobs and growth, and to transform employment support to get Britain working.

Will the Minister answer a simple question: since the Budget, have unemployment rates gone up or down?

I have just given the OBR’s assessment. It is worth noting that there are still a significant number of vacancies in the economy. We are determined that the Department for Work and Pensions will be reformed to serve employers better, so that they can fill those vacancies.

Many disabled people in Ealing Southall are unnecessarily unemployed purely and simply because their employer refuses to respond to their request for the reasonable adjustments that they need to do their job. Will the Minister consider strengthening the right to reasonable adjustments, so that workers receive a response within a specified number of weeks, in line with the recommendations in the groundbreaking disability employment charter?

I thank my hon. Friend for her important question. I know she met my colleague the Minister for Social Security and Disability recently, and I am sure that their conversations were productive on this important point.

I recognise what was behind the increase in the national minimum wage for 18 to 21-year-olds, but I have been surprised by the reaction of businesses in my constituency. Those businesses have told me, in terms, that they will reduce the number of 18 to 21-year-olds they employ, because there is a higher failure rate associated with their employment, as they are new to the workforce, yet employing them will cost the same as employing those who are older. Does the Minister recognise that issue, and what will she do about it?

Anybody who sees that, in the British economy, there are nearly 1 million young people out of work or training—not doing anything—would say that is a dreadful legacy left by the previous Administration. That is why the youth guarantee is at the heart of our “Get Britain Working” plan.

That is incredibly kind of you, Mr Speaker.

Young non-graduates are finding it far harder to get good, well-paid jobs. The number of young people not in education, employment or training has nearly doubled since 2013, and youth unemployment is at its highest rate in almost a decade because young people are not getting the skills they need. On top of that, they are becoming far sicker; one in three young people currently has a mental health problem, and that figure is rising. What are the Government and the Department doing to give young people the skills and the health support that they need to get good, well-paying jobs?

That question demonstrates the quality analysis I would expect from recently engaged economists on the Labour Benches. The Minister for Skills and I have been working closely on the youth guarantee, because we know that it is only by colleges and jobcentres working in hand in hand that we will get young people the skills that they need to succeed.

In the run-up to the election, Labour clearly committed to an employment rate target of 80%, but in the past few weeks I have noticed a shift in language from “target” to “ambition”. Will the Minister clear this up for us: are the Government still committed to the 80% employment target, or will that be another broken Labour promise?

I make no apologies for having ambition for people in our labour market. The figure was always an ambition, because Labour Members want our jobcentres to shift away from pointless admin towards real ambition for everybody who steps through the door.

I think we all heard that loud and clear: Labour has ditched its employment target. That is already another broken Labour promise. However, I feel for the Minister. How can she be expected to boost employment when her Chancellor is busy taxing jobs and then shrinking the economy? The Government have destroyed business confidence, have put up taxes on jobs, and are piling red tape on employers. Which of those measures will help her to deliver that employment “ambition”?

I have brought forward proposals to get Britain working, together with the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, the Secretary of State for Education, and Secretaries of State right across Government. That is how we will plot a course towards our ambition of an 80% employment rate. I thank the shadow Secretary of State for being kind enough to refer to our “Get Britain Working” plans as

“rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic”.

It was very brave of her to acknowledge that the last Government’s legacy for us was a sinking ship.