Speech on House of Lords Reform

Speech on House of Lords Reform
House of Commons
July 10th, 2012
David Miliband (South Shields) (Lab): It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Watford (Richard Harrington). I hope in my six minutes to pick up two of the key points that he made and that were made very forcefully by Labour Members yesterday. I have been spurred to speak by the fact that I find myself on the opposite side of the debate from some comrades on this side of the House with whom I have worked very closely over the past 10 or 15 years. I have asked myself why my view is so diametrically opposed to that stated by, for example, my right hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough (Mr Blunkett), who spoke passionately about the constitutional disaster that the Bill, he believes, represents. I do not share his view for two reasons, and I shall use my time to explain why.
First, my difference with my right hon. Friend and other right hon. and hon. Members who have spoken is that I take a different view of the inadequacies and dangers of the current system. My right hon. Friend the Member for Salford and Eccles (Hazel Blears) rightly drew attention to the Hansard Society study of how politics is held in disrepute. That study shows not just disengagement, but disaffection; not just misunderstanding, but deep mistrust; not just confusion, but contempt for politics and for Parliament. We have to take our share of the blame for that, but so does the House of Lords.
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Once a fortnight, I teach A-level politics at my old comprehensive school. I was there this morning. That experience brings home the gap between the debates, the procedure and the structure of our Parliament and what exists outside. It is not just that a lesson on the British constitution seems like a trip to Hogwarts and games of quidditch; it is more fundamental than that. At a time when politics needs to be more transparent and inclusive, the unelected structure of the other place makes politics opaque and exclusive.
Yesterday, the hon. Member for Altrincham and Sale West (Mr Brady) made the very good point that we need reform in this place, and the hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mark Field) spoke with real passion about that. I want to work with them on those reforms, but the need for House of Commons reform is not a reason to close our eyes to the need for reform of the House of Lords.
Richard Drax (South Dorset) (Con): Does the right hon. Gentleman agree with me that it is not so much that the system needs reforming, but that, sadly, some Members in this place behaved disreputably which has brought politics into disrepute?
David Miliband: Clearly the antics of some Members—a very small minority—brought Parliament into disrepute, but I regret that, two or three years ago, more of us did not speak up and say that 95% or 99% of Members in all parts of this House come into public life for public purpose, not for private benefit. Our problems are, in a way, deeper than a couple of rotten apples who abuse the system.
Mr George Howarth (Knowsley) (Lab): My right hon. Friend says that the current system is opaque and exclusive. Does he agree that one way to prevent that from happening on this issue is to have a referendum?
David Miliband: I ran on a manifesto that included a referendum and I support it absolutely.
Let me deal with the argument that elected Lords will represent a shocking precedent and a threat to the constitutional order, because they will be political partisans—not to say apparatchiks—put on party lists. I remind right hon. and hon. Members that 80% of the current House of Lords were nominated by party leaders, and the figure is higher if we look at voting numbers in that House. Yesterday, the hon. Member for Hereford and South Herefordshire (Jesse Norman), who is not in his place, said that the Lords defeated the Blair Governments 430 times and invited us to believe that that proved that the Lords were mighty enough already. The truth is that the problem was not the power of the House of Lords, but the fact that there was an in-built Conservative majority when we came to power in 1997.
The second issue that I want to deal with is more important. It goes to the issue of the relationship between the House of Commons and the House of Lords—something to which the hon. Member for Portsmouth North (Penny Mordaunt) referred. I have long argued for a single package of reform for both Houses, but the alternative vote farrago or fiasco has put paid to that, and we need to cut our Lords cloth accordingly, given that we know that the electoral system for this place is not changing in the foreseeable future.
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Many of those who have attacked the Bill have done so on two mutually contradictory grounds. They have said that election to the Lords will mortally wound the primacy of the House of Commons—the point that the hon. Lady made—and neuter the power of Government in the process. At the same time, they have argued that 15-year terms will not provide sufficient accountability for Members of the new House of Lords, and that it is necessary for the new elected Lords to have more regular engagement with the electorate, but opponents of the Bill cannot have it both ways. The truth is that 15-year terms were designed, in 2007-08, to minimise the challenge of an elected Lords to the Commons. The electoral alternative to 15-year terms is five or 10-year terms, with re-election. That really is a recipe for a challenge to the primacy of the House of Commons. To oppose 15-year terms is to oppose any direct election at all. That is a perfectly principled position, but not one that I hold.
Hazel Blears (Salford and Eccles) (Lab) rose —
David Miliband: I will come back to my right hon. Friend if I can. The real question is whether an elected second Chamber with 15-year terms will overwhelm the conventions and understandings that establish the primacy of this place, and that we all defend. I can see the truth in the argument that an elected upper House will be more demanding of the Executive, and lead to more robust debate. It might—probably will—make life more difficult for Government, though contrary to the editorial in The Times and what the hon. Member for Portsmouth North said, Cross Benchers will be protected, and will hold the balance of power in the new House. Personally, I think that a more robust challenge to the Executive from the second Chamber would be a good thing. It would make for a better Parliament. To be fair to myself, I argued for that when I was in government, as well as in opposition.
I cannot, however, see the truth in the argument that that greater challenge—that more robust debate—will lead to such difficulties that the Lords will overrun the Commons. This House will form the Government, control the finances, and have the constituency link; this House will always have the most recent—and only—electoral mandate; and this House will hold up its sleeve the ace of the Parliament Acts, which regulate the role of the other place on financial matters, and provide that this House will get its way.
In Lord Pannick’s submission to the Joint Committee on the draft Bill, he made the point that
“it is absolutely vital…for the reform Bill to specify with clarity whether or not it is the intention that the Parliament Acts should continue to apply”.
That is the Government’s intention. We must make sure, in Committee, that in all scenarios, the Parliament Acts are completely protected. The Parliamentary Secretary, Office of the Leader of the House of Commons, the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr Heath), said yesterday that he did not want justiciability, and I understand that argument. If we are to go with that argument, we must be absolutely sure that we cement the role of the Parliament Acts, which Lord Pannick says is possible.
Mr Robert Buckland (South Swindon) (Con): Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
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David Miliband: I just do not have time; I am really sorry.
Lord Pannick’s point is that if we want to achieve that aim, we must cement the role of the Parliament Acts in the Bill. We can do that in Committee, and must make sure that we do it properly.
I apologise to my right hon. Friend the Member for Salford and Eccles and the hon. Member for South Swindon (Mr Buckland), but I shall not be able to give way; I have only 25 seconds left.
The issue before us is not whether the proposals are perfect, or even whether a Bill based on the manifestos of all three parties deserves a Second Reading. It is whether the proposals improve on an unelected and unaccountable House of Lords, and the current indefensible set of arrangements. The Bill is not about neutering the Commons; it is about bringing our democracy into the 21st century, and I urge all colleagues in all parts of the House to support the Bill in the Lobby.

SPEAKER’S LECTURE – ‘MINISTERS AND POLITICS IN A TIME OF CRISIS’

SPEAKER’S LECTURE – ‘MINISTERS AND POLITICS IN A TIME OF CRISIS’
Palace of Westminster
June 19th, 2012
When I was first invited to give this lecture, the title proposed was ‘Ministers and Parliament’. I had in my mind’s eye a discussion of the great Parliamentary clashes, and what they tell us about the scrutiny of the executive. Jack Straw always insisted to me that the safest place for a Minister when he or she is in trouble is the floor of the House of Commons. I thought we might test that thesis.
Then the title was changed to ‘Ministers and Government’. My immediate reflex was to examine the changing constitutional and administrative pressures on Minsterial life. Such a lecture would dwell on how changes like 24 hour news, the Freedom of Information Act, social media have changed the balance between the two main aims of any Minister – survival and making a difference. But to be honest, I don’t fancy that lecture. If you want to know how to handle an epidemic of bird flu when you hardly know the difference between a turkey and a chicken, or if you want to know how to make friends with Mrs Clinton, you’ll have to chance your arm in the Q and A.
Instead I am going to talk about Ministers and Politics. And because I am in Opposition, I hope I am allowed to talk about Shadow Ministers and politics – and how they become Ministers.
There is a temptation to tell political war stories. But I am a bit young for the memoirs, and these are serious times for Ministers and politics. We meet when there is one overwhelmingly important issue in national political life. I am talking of course about the economic crisis. The figures speak for themselves. We now know that we are not just in the slowest recovery from recession for a century, but in fact have re-entered recession. We know that even according to the optimistic OBR assumptions national income per head will not reach pre crisis levels until 2016/17. Politics is dominated by what government is going to take away not what it is going to give. We face wrenching questions about how to pay our way in the world, and how to do justice to those who cannot. And for all the schadenfreude about the problems of the Euro, its potential fracture is a massive threat to our living standards.
The truth is that the 2008 global financial crisis and its aftermath have changed western political life in a more fundamental way than is yet appreciated. Two years ago, in the course of the General Election campaign, the question was first raised of whether Britain was facing a Greek style meltdown. I argued that the greater danger was not an acute Greek tragedy, but a chronic Japanese drama, where we spent a decade struggling with anaemic or no growth. That is what we face.
Tonight I want to look at the implications for politics of this enduring economic crisis. I will leave three points for you to take away:
- That the lesson of political history is that politics is more volatile in a time of crisis – so the next election is up for grabs
- That big ideas will emerge – so Government and Opposition need to fight the natural tendency to focus on tactics in order to compete in the battle of ideas
- That this economic crisis is not an excuse for postponing political reform, but a reason to develop it and deepen it; we actually need a proper political reformation.
Lessons of the 1970s
Let me start in South Shields. In my constituency last week I was talking about the challenges facing the country. Someone came up to me after the meeting and said: “This is really frightening”. What she meant was that the issues were grave and complex; added to that, she thought the government was clueless.
Leave to one side the partisan element. The truth is we haven’t seen anything like this economic crisis since the 1970s. Then, we had the debate about ‘fiscal crisis of the state’, the rise of separatist parties in the form of the SNP and Plaid Cymru, the birth of extremist parties like the National Front. The sociologist Daniel Bell claimed in the middle of that decade that the nation state ‘was too big for the small problems and too small for the big ones’. There was even a name for the crisis: “the ungovernability thesis”. Britain, it was claimed, was too divided to be governed.
It was also a time when Britain seemed to be on the receiving end of power plays in the Middle East, when we seemed at odds with Europe even after we joined the EEC, and when a Conservative Prime Minister was castigated for being aloof from his backbenchers and out of touch with the country. I wonder if any of this sounds familiar?
It’s actually quite eerie. I was brought up in Leeds in the 1970s and remember Bruce Forsyth dominating the Saturday night schedules. There was even a drought. All we need is a comeback tour by the Bay City Rollers and the circle will be complete.
The parallel is not exact. For example instead of labour challenging the prerogatives of capital, no one can seriously argue that with 17% of the private sector workforce unionised trade unionism is too strong in Britain today. Instead of the crisis of governability coming from a challenge to government authority at home, it comes from the weakness of governance abroad.
But I think there are enough similarities to try and draw out the political lessons for today. There are at least four.
The first is obvious: politics is much more uncertain in times of crisis. Younger listeners may not know this, but Governments can actually lose elections before they win three in a row! In the 1970s there were four Prime Ministers and five governments in 9 years. For me and my party, this is great news! In 2015 Labour can win the General Election and Ed can be in Downing Street. But my own sense is that the Labour leadership are right to warn against trying to default into power. Reassuring ourselves that all is well and that if we hold tight to old verities the electorate will realise the error of their ways – and there is always a market for this in both main parties - is the most dangerous plan of all. Voters in a time of crisis can swing from government to opposition, that is true, but they can also desert the mainstream parties. And crises produce a flight to safety in politics as well as in financial markets. Jim Callaghan was immensely popular even in defeat.
The second lesson is that even in the 1970s, at a much more primitive stage of globalisation, domestic economics and international politics are interwoven. In the 1970s British people felt humbled by Idi Amin and the IMF. Henry Kissinger confided to Richard Nixon that he found Britain’s reduced situation pathetic.
We shouldn’t be surprised to get reports today from European capitals that there is fury about British lectures on the future of the Eurozone. It’s not just that we are semi detached from the European project. It is that we are conspicuously in economic trouble ourselves.
Many people are breathing a sigh of relief that we are not in the Euro. Me included. But precisely because we are not in the Euro we need to be the people thinking about how to ensure Britain is not left on the sidelines when the EU moves forward to a more federal Eurozone.
The Prime Minister says that we are moving into a world of flexible networks not rigid blocs. He does not wish the EU ill, but he doesn’t see it as central to the future of our country. I disagree. We live in a global village, but that village is made up of different neighbourhoods. And a country weak in its neighbourhood is going to be weak globally. That is the danger we face at the moment.
For me it was the economics not the politics of the December Fiscal Pact that were the problem. We should be arguing that the Euro is a product of the European Union, and needs to respect the rules of the EU and the interests of all its members. And to retain our position of strength within the EU we need to be on the front foot on issues like economic reform, energy, foreign policy. The rest of Europe actually wants a strong British voice on these issues.
The third lesson is that economic stress spills over into social and industrial disorder when politics leaves a vacuum. I was living for a year in America during the fire strike of 1977/78 – but I remember the social studies teacher, Mrs Fogg, telling her class of 8th graders how lucky they were not to live in Britain. And I remember watching the 1981 riots as a 16 year old London schoolboy and thinking that the country had broken down. I don’t say last year’s riots were caused because not enough people were listening to ‘Today in Parliament’. I do say that a lesson of the 1970s is that people take power into their hands when they feel there is a political vacuum at the top. This is a point to which I will return.
Fourth, crises can bring radical ideas from the margins to the mainstream. Crises are the incubators of big ideas. The greatest prize in times of crisis goes to those who develop a telling break from a failing model of economy and society - not those who seek to resuscitate an old model.
The two economic crises of the 20th century were the parents of dramatic changes in the political centre of gravity in western economies. The 1930s spawned welfare capitalism – a new social contract in which full employment paid for public services and welfare benefits. And like it or loathe it, the mix of monetarism , deregulation, privatisation did emerge from the 1970s and define the 1980s. These were serious new ideas. By contrast the SDP split from Labour had profound political implications – but in terms of ideas it felt less like a break with the past than, in the late Ralf Dahrendorf’s telling phrase, “a better yesterday”. This it seems to me to be the danger for the Tory right today – dreaming of the things that Mrs Thatcher failed to do, when economy and society have moved on.
The point is that in times of crisis the premium is on conviction and strategy, not positioning and tactics. The 2008 global financial crisis has changed economic debate in western economies in fundamental ways. Keynesianism is back (outside Germany). Industrial policy is back. The IMF is back. The intellectual heavy lifting needs to be anti austerity – because the acute financial sector and state sovereignty crises cannot be resolved without growth. But it also needs to be pro reform – because the chronic challenges of demography and competition cannot be escaped. This is why Ed’s responsible capitalism agenda is the right one.
The machinery of government can help. I was disappointed that the current Government have abolished the Prime Minister’s Strategy Unit – a really good innovation of the Blair years. The recent report from the Public Administration Select Committee shows one of the consequences. It says “We have little confidence that Government policies are informed by a clear, coherent strategic approach, itself informed by a coherent assessment of the public’s aspiratioins and their perceptions of the national interest”. Interestingly enough the respected but cautious Atlantic Council said in a report on British foreign policy in the run up to the Nato Summit the government “has yet to develop a coherent strategi vision for the UK’s role in a changing global landscape...British foreign policy vision and strategy remain unclear.”
This creates space for the Opposition. But while government faces the perennial tug of tactics at the expense of strategy, Opposition faces the challenge of developing answers when there seem to be plenty of votes in anger. For all the noise of daily politics, this is where the next election will be decided.
Broken Politics
If these are the lessons of the 1970s, there is one seismic difference that is relevant. It concerns the political conditions in which the economic crisis has to be addressed. The 1974 Labour manifesto talked of a “crowning test of our democracy” in confronting the economic perils facing the country, but there was little thought that the political system itself needed reform. Today we do not have that luxury.
All of us here are active in or committed to politics. We have a degree of mutual respect for each other and for the system – hopefully not eroded by listening to this lecture. But beyond our circle, trust is low and declining. For many people politics is broken. Probably more broken than the economy. The recent Hansard Society report documented not just disengagement but disaffection, not just misunderstanding but mistrust, not just confusion but contempt.
The latest British Social Attitudes Survey reports that in the last 25 years the percentage of people saying that politicians put the national interest before party interest has fallen from 47 per cent to 20 per cent. The percentage who say it is not worth voting has risen six fold (to 20%).
There is no one source of malaise. Nor is it confined to Britain – across the democratic world there is gridlock and disaffection. But there are some acute elements here. Deference used to be greater than other countries, and its decline has been more precipitate. The resistance to change in the structure and practice of central government and Parliament has been dogged. The expenses scandal was sapping. To cap it all, no one, not the Government nor Opposition, not the Bank of England nor the FSA, warned the public about the danger of the biggest economic crisis for eighty years. No wonder people are sceptical.
Let me give this a more practical face. Last week I was visiting a community project in East London. It is impossible to overstate the degree of frustration felt by professionals running schools, businesses, community projects at the episodic, half-baked, impatient, misguided, bureaucratic nature of political engagement with and national discussion of the lives of local people.
Ministerial reshuffles corrode any sense of relationship. The civil service is top down in a bottom up world. The legislative process is byzantine and ineffective. Policy from long term care to airports to GM foods is an untouchable third rail.
This is exacerbated because economics and politics are today pulling in opposite directions. The economics points towards more sharing of sovereignty at international level; the politics is inward-looking not outward-looking. The economics says that we need more labour mobility; the politics says the opposite. The economics says that we need creditors as well as debtors in the global economy to bear the burden of adjustment; the politics of that is very difficult. The economics says that we need to rebalance the welfare state from our debts to the old to our legacy to the young; but needless to say the politics of that are very tough.
So while it is true that both parties need to think afresh to provide the answers that the public want in respect of the economic crisis, so they both – we both - have a responsibility to ensure that the cause of political reform is not lost at precisely the time it is needed most. The big idea coming out of this crisis needs to be political and not just economic.
There is gridlock in the US. Deadlock in the Eurozone. And here the idea of elected city mayors is seen in the Westminster Village as a big change, but has been rejected by the public as offering more of the same. The structure of the House of Lords is living proof that our system is better at continuity than change – and now there is the argument that political reform is a luxury that we cannot afford. The Leveson Inquiry has all but bypassed the shared responsibility of politicians and the public for the quality of democratic dialogue.
The Path to a Reformation
So my plea tonight is that we do not allow political reform – in fact political reformation - to fall victim to the economic crisis. I would make no claim that a single reform is the answer, still less that I have found all the answers. But there is clearly a problem; and there are clues to the answers if we are willing to seek them out.
The world in which our constituents live is marked by pluralism, flexibility, empowerment, risk-taking, new forms of cooperation, above all trial and error. For a range of reasons, good and bad, that is not our world. Parliament, policy-making and the party system have – the Monarchy aside – changed less than any other part of national life in the last forty years. And that is a problem.
Imagine political parties focussed between elections on mobilising their resources to help people tackle the issues that matter to them. It wouldn’t just help the country, it would help the parties! I have spent some of the last year and a half trying to work out how to turn politics from looking inwards to looking outwards, from treating voters as cogs in the wheel to making them part of the political drama. Movement for Change is a small voluntary organisation with a big idea – to train 10 000 community leaders over four or five years to lead change in their communities. The founding idea is simple: action creates hope rather than hope creating action. It is where the labour movement started and where it will find its renewal. So when people come together to get get the living wage paid on their university campus, put in place a new zebra crossing, change recycling arrangements, or engage bouncers in night clubs to tackle violence against women, they don’t only make change but build confidence in the political process.
It is early for lessons. But one is obvious. There is more capacity in communities than ever before. At the moment the political process too often shuts it out. In fact it can be a source of renewal. The Big Society was actually onto something but in my view fell down in the zero sum game it proposed between government retreat and civil society renewal. If it is true that the Government have given up on it, I hope we in the Labour Party pick it up and run with it.
Imagine that we didn’t just preach subsidiarity in the distribution of power in Europe, but actually practised it at home. We cannot allow the defeat of the mayoral leadership model in referenda around the country to become the death knell for the devolution of power to cities. Here is a striking fact: 65% of global GDP and 85% of technological innovation takes place in just 40 urban centres around the world. We need to learn the lesson.
I am passionately engaged in the debate about youth unemployment...we all know that there are different needs in different parts of the country...we need to devolve power so the right combination of carrots and sticks, welfare and education, childcare and transport, mentoring and job guarantees is available in different parts of the country. I know less about housing... but as Graeme Cooke of IPPR is pointing out in a pamphlet this week it cannot be right that the biggest driver of housing policy is decisions by the DWP about Housing Benefit, whose cost will rise to £24bn by the end of this Parliament. Surely it is worth offering our cities the chance to design housing policy for themselves, with their share of national funds in their hands to decide the balance between subsidising rent and subsidising new build. The housing market is different between Manchester, London and Newcastle. Let’s recognise that. I am not a transport expert, but the Manchester Combined Authority shows the way: isn’t transport a case for devolution too, integrating local road, rail and bus funds for decision making at city regional level.
The 1970 Tory manifesto said “central government is overloaded”. But since then government has become more loaded. The benefit of reversing this trend is not just better policy. It would also free up the clogged arteries of Whitehall.
Imagine that Parliament is ahead of debates not behind them, talking about the political, economic and social issues that people are talking about. Just think if every week we had moments of candour and insight like that provided in the backbench debate on mental health last week. Don’t tell me Parliament’s reputation would not be enhanced.
The history of this place is special. And the ancient history is of Parliament asserting itself against the executive. But in truth, because our government is drawn from our legislature, the history of the last 100 years is of a Parliament under the thumb of government not its master. Select Committees can mitigate against that. So can backbench debates. So can the Speaker – and I for one support the way this Speaker is using Urgent Questions to make Parliament a place that does debate the issues of the day. But we need to drive relevance and connection to the public through all aspects of the House’s work. Here is one example. Topicality – through open questions - makes PMQs work. But although Ministers come to Parliament every day to answer questions, three quarters of the topics are notified to them in advance. Yet in my experience, it is only the topical questions that make Ministers sweat. In my view we should make all questions open, topical and therefore challenging.
Imagine if there was a sensible democratic dialogue about the future of the country in the media. Question Time and Any Questions are practically the only places that bring politicians and the public together – yet to my point about local government and cities, neither programme has any record of a single local government leader other than the Mayor of London being on the show.
There is of course no singular ‘media’...and over the next decade it is going to become even more pluralist. The print media is in decline. It accounts for less than 10 per cent of the time consumers spend on the media. It is resolutely focussed on competitive survival. Internet and social media account for 30 per cent of people’s media time. That is too diffuse to be driven by democratic responsibility. That leaves TV and radio. They are key to this – accounting for 60 per cent of media time. They need to assert their own independence from the newspapers. And if I was choosing the next DG of the BBC I would be more concerned by their ideas for renewing our democracy than their view of the admittedly poor coverage of the Jubilee river pageant.
There’s a whole separate lecture about consent and engagement at international level. You’ll be pleased to know that is for another time. But we shouldn’t just imagine change in our domestic political space. We should make it happen.
Conclusion
The challenge for Ministers and Shadow Ministers today is harder than for thirty years. It is incrementally harder to survive and harder to make a difference – because nothing is private, because society is fragmented, because politics is dyspeptic. It is qualitatively harder because we are living through a once in a generation set of policy and political challenges.
The key to success is to remember the twin diseases identified by Gerald Kaufman in his famous book How to be a Minister – departmentalitis and governmentalitis. The former involves losing the wider view, the latter becoming a pale imitation of your permanent secretary. Both prevent the perspective and drive that are crucial to the effective exercise of power.
The point of the 1970s comparison is to say that the country faces choices the like of which it has not had for a long time. My argument today is that the economics will not be resolved without political reformation of a profound kind. Reform of government; reform of parliament; reform of the political parties; and reform of the way we do politics. I say this because I have learnt it.
We elect a government of politicians, not an administration of technocrats. But government for the people needs to be complemented by government by the people. That is why I have made my theme tonight Ministers and Politics, because without good, inclusive, empowering politics, there is no successful government.

Speech on Jobs and Growth in Queen’s Speech debate

Speech on Jobs and Growth in Queen’s Speech debate
House of Commons
May 17th, 2012
CHECK AGAINST DELIVERY
Madame Deputy Speaker I want to make two points in this debate.
The first is about youth unemployment. I will present figures showing that the country is paying a rising price for the Government’s economic failure.
The second is that neglect over youth unemployment is matched by hubris over the Euro.
We don’t need to debate whether youth unemployment is a big problem. It’s a massive problem. The key figure is about long term unemployment. Today, over 260 000 young people have been unemployed for over a year, and a further 200 000 for over 6 months.
And the problem is getting worse and more expensive.
As recently as 2008 there were 6000 18-24 year olds claiming JSA for over a year. Now it is 55 000. It has tripled in the last year. In South Shields it has gone from 15 people in April 2011 to 250 a year later. A 1500 per cent increase.
As for cost, in February the Acevo Commission on Youth Unemployment which I chaired calculated on the basis of figures from the first quarter of 2011 the ten year cost of youth unemployment – from higher benefits, lost taxes, lost economic activity – to be £28 billion.
The University of Bristol have re-run the figures using the last quarter of 2011. The calculation now stands at £30 billion [figures can be found here: http://davidmiliband.net/2012/05/youth-unemployment-figures/ ]. £2bn of reasons to inject urgency and effectiveness into Government policy.
It is no good the Employment Minister trumpeting stability. Stability in this case means the problem is festering and getting worse.
How dare the Deputy Leader of the Lib Dems celebrate last Wednesday the “huge success” of government policy.
- The new wage subsidy is at best unproven at the proposed level. My PQ from last week has not been answered in time for this debate.
- The apprenticeship drive is rebadging more jobs for over 25s than creating new jobs for under 25s.
- The expertise of voluntary sector providers is being squeezed out by the contracting process. The Single Homeless Project, the London Voluntary Service Council, St Mungo’s, have all pulled out.
- There is a gaping hole in government policy around transport costs
I make no apology for repeating a basic fact to Ministers. The Work Programme helps only one in ten of the young unemployed. And the sharp rise in long term unemployment has coincided exactly with the introduction of the Work Programme in June 2011. It’s success rate is 20 per cent. So only one in fifty of the young unemployed are getting a job thanks to the programme.
The Chancellor’s bet that cutting public spending would of itself spur private sector growth has hit the buffers. So here are three steps that the government could take:
- Require all public contracts over £1 million to offer apprenticeships to young people.
- Bring forward spending from 2014 to raise either the size of the wage subsidy or the number of young people helped.
- Bite the bullet and recognise that only a part time job guarantee can offer hope for those unemployed for over a year.
One in thirty people in work lost their jobs in the first quarter of this year. No wonder there is a crisis of confidence.
Government Ministers blame Europe for the collapse at home.
But on key measures we are actually doing worse than the big countries in Europe. Worse than Germany – maybe people expect that. But worse than France too. We are actually on a par for performance with Italy. And with a 20 per cent rise in the value of the pound in the last 4 years the Chancellor’s claim that he would rotate the economy from domestic to external demand looks like a pipedream.
The lesson is not to stay the course; it is to change course.
All the OBR charts and predictions are based on a model that presumes all economies trend back to 2% growth. But we are in a balance sheet recession, and no model predicted that.
The troubles in Europe are not a reason for us to stick to Plan A; they are the reason to shift to Plan B.
Debts are rising in Spain, Portugal, Italy and Ireland because fiscal policy is exacerbating the economic cycle.
So our absolute requirement is to pitch all our policy – fiscal policy, monetary policy, industrial policy, banking policy - against the cycle in the light of the risks we face.
And we need to argue for that abroad as well as at home. We should be embracing President Hollande not snubbing him.
There are no islands in the modern economy.
It is not ideology. It is maths. And judging by the Gracious Address, it is time for the government to go back to the classroom.

Budget Debate speech

Budget Debate speech
House of Commons
March 26th, 2012
The Minister did not manage to mention in his speech the export potential of football, but I am happy to refer the House to my declared interest as the vice-chairman of Sunderland football club.
Since last Wednesday, the consensus has formed that the Budget spin was cack-handed. I want to make the case that the substance was dangerously complacent about growth and youth unemployment. Growth in our economy has tanked since the Chancellor’s Budget at this time last year. The hon. Member for Bury St Edmunds (Mr Ruffley) said that we had had a nascent recovery, but the truth is that we have had a non-existent recovery. We have had stagnation. British business is sitting on £750 billion-worth of cash, but it is not investing. It is not refusing to invest because of the planning laws or tax rates or because of public sector pay rates; it is not investing because there is no demand in the economy for the goods and services it wants to produce. No wonder the OBR has slashed its forecast not just for growth but for business investment down from nearly 8% to less than 1%.
I have never believed the argument that without the austerity programme Britain was about to become Greece; neither do I believe the Chancellor’s argument from last Wednesday that it is essential to keep austerity to keep international investors buying British gilts. Why? Some 89% of conventional gilts issued by the Debt Management Office in the past year have been bought by the Bank of England, not by international investors. Even within the fiscal straitjacket that the Chancellor has set, he could have done more. He found £1 billion to support business. We all want to support business. His corporation tax cut will add to the corporate cash pile, but it will not change the arithmetic of demand. Meanwhile, far from increasing investment in capital allowances that would do so, he is cutting them by £1.7 billion. Instead of focusing on regional policy, the Treasury has abolished its regional policy unit. Instead of the strength of higher education being exploited, higher education visas are being cut. Instead of tackling the finance gap for small and medium-sized enterprises, a British investment bank was nowhere to be seen in this Budget. No wonder the OBR concluded, after studying each and every one of the Chancellor’s plans that had been announced since the autumn statement, that the plans will do nothing for growth this year and that it will have to reduce its forecast for growth next year.
We have learned, since the Chancellor’s new definition of simplification last Wednesday, that the price is to be paid by the old. There has been a lot of commentary on that, but there has been far less commentary on the price to be paid by the young. By the Government’s own admission there is a crisis of youth unemployment, with more than a million under-25s out of work, with 1.4 million not in education, employment or training, with 250,000 young people having been unemployed for at least a year and with 200,000 more having been unemployed for more than six months. The net present value cost of all that has been independently calculated at £28 billion. In my constituency, there has been a 250% rise in long-term youth unemployment, with 590 young people having been looking for work for more than six months.
This Government did not invent the problem, but they have made it worse. The Budget was their chance to make a difference, but while the Chancellor insulted the elderly he ignored the young—he spent longer talking about taxing hot snacks. Ministers say, “Look at what we have already announced,” but the flagship Work programme covers only one in 10 of the young unemployed. By the Government’s own admission, the Work programme itself, according to the voluntary sector group that comes together to discuss these things, will help only one in five of those on the programme. So, in total, the Government’s programme will help only one in 50 of the young unemployed get into work.
The Government’s wage subsidy programme, which starts in April, is designed to help 50,000 young people but that number could be doubled by bringing forward the spending for 2014 when the Government say that unemployment will be falling. What about the apprenticeship programme? We all support apprenticeships. Some 75% of the increase in apprenticeships is going to the over-25s. The administration of the £120 million plan for 16 and 17-year-olds is putting at risk precisely the voluntary organisations that the big society was meant to help.
The Deputy Prime Minister has said that he cannot think of a better use of money than creating jobs, hope and optimism for young people. The Prime Minister and the Chancellor say we are all in it together, but the truth is that they got lost in the endless tactical dance about how to dress up the cut in the top rate of tax and in the endless leaking about who would claim credit for raising the personal allowance. They have completely flunked the issue of how to get our economy back on its feet. The loveless coalition will say anything but will do nothing. That is the true story of the Budget and that is the tragedy for the country.

Speech to the OneVoice Europe gala dinner

Speech to the OneVoice Europe gala dinner
London
March 19th, 2012
Text of speech by former UK Foreign Secretary, the Rt. Hon. David Miliband, delivered on Monday, March 19, at OneVoice Europe's gala dinner in London.
After welcoming everyone to the event, David Miliband had special words of thanks for the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Rowan Williams, who attended the event and has supported OneVoice Europe since it was established in 2006.
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The Archbishop [of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams] has not feared to tread into the Middle East, but equally he has not trod without great care; building bridges across religious divides. And, although, it is not our topic tonight, the terrible shootings in Toulouse remind us that building bridges and respect is one of the duties of public leadership, and I think Rowan Williams has discharged those duties with enormous compassion and commitment. And I feel it is important to say that.
You, the supporters of OneVoice, make something that is necessary, that is unique and that is right, possible. You make the dialogue and discussion of Israelis and Palestinians, especially young Israelis and Palestinians, possible. And just because something is necessary and right and unique doesn’t mean it would happen. So it is important to recognize that some of the things that you will hear about tonight in the film and the speeches wouldn’t happen without your commitment.
I first met the young OneVoice leaders with David Levin in 2008 and I immediately saw from that meeting that they were both ordinary, and extraordinary. You have got two remarkable young leaders here tonight and they are going to speak to you from Israel and Palestine. They were ordinary young people because they were idealistic, brave, raw in the way that they expressed themselves, insightful. And I think those are qualities that if you take the time to talk to young people around the world, you actually find in great abundance. But they were also extraordinary, because they were defying conventional opinion in their own communities. By 2008, any notion that there was an inevitability about a two-state solution had disappeared, but more than that, it was no longer fashionable to be talking about a two-state solution in the Middle East. And so these young people were, I think, extraordinary in the way they defied conventional opinion.
What I most liked about them was that they were trying to mobilize something that money can’t buy. That is people-power! They were trying to mobilize opinion and action for a great and vital cause for both of their communities. In that sense they were trying to live out that hackneyed phrase of ‘be the change that is within you.’ They were actually doing it themselves and I have to say they taught me something very, very important. I spent 20 years trying to help the Labour Party become a good government for the people, but what OneVoice amongst others taught me was that you can’t have a good government for the people unless you have a commitment to the government by the people. The emphasis in OneVoice of government by the people and mobilization of the people has a very wide resonance. The achievements are not to be sniffed at, at all. Merely the plan itself sends a tremendous message, I think, to communities right around the world. The individual actions, whether it be reopening the Gaza office, mobilizing to block the recent illegal outposts bill, reaching out to the United States and to universities, doing some tremendous work in Britain, actually, in universities where both Palestinians and Jewish communities have felt under some kind of siege. OneVoice has been able to show in Britain that actually dialogue is the answer to an end of that siege.
So I want to say to you tonight that we are supporting an organization that is doing some important good. And if I only said that, I think you would go away dissatisfied because that is not the whole truth. I think in 2012, it is important to recognize that’s not the whole truth because the wider truth is that OneVoice is doing some good in circumstances that are basically very bad. In fact, the circumstances in many ways have rarely been worse in the last 30 or 40 years. I think it would be dishonest, and I have otherwise said publicly, that the failure to establish a Palestinian state next to Israel is the greatest diplomatic failure in 40 years. It’s the greatest diplomatic failure because, actually, it is one of those international problems to which there is actually a viable solution. There is a young man here from the University of Manchester, he was at the event I did in Manchester last week, where I was asked about Somalia, and the truth is I really don’t know what the answer is in Somalia. But in respect to that small piece of land at the heart of the Middle East, I do think my opinion and that of the majority of Israelis and Palestinians, which is that you need two states able to live side by side with each other, is the right answer. It is the greatest failure of diplomacy because diplomacy has failed to bring it about, and there is suffering and injustice and insecurity on both sides as a result. Great suffering, great injustice and great insecurity.
This is a very challenging period because in blunt terms, to speak in basic politics to you, the Israel-Palestine question is probably now fourth or fifth on the Middle East political agenda, nevermind on the global political agenda. I say that to you not to depress you, but to tell you both the truth and also to say to you that the fundraising that is going to be done later tonight is even more important because of that political context. If in fact this was a fashionable cause that was the inevitable product of history, then OneVoice would be worthwhile, but much less necessary. It is because there is a real question about whether the two-state solution will ever be achieved that it is even more necessary than ever. The truth is that the agenda in Israel, in the United States, and I have to say in the large part in the Gulf is not about Israel and Palestine, it is about Iran. The truth is that the Arab Spring has turned regional attention away from the Israel-Palestine question. The Israel Spring, the Tel Aviv Spring that took place last March, was notable for many things, one of which was that the word ‘Palestine’ was not mentioned at all in the demonstrations that took place in the heart of Tel Aviv. The Palestinian Spring has not yet sprung and it’s for those reasons this cause, this cause that I think is vital to the state of Israel and vital to the people of Palestine, has fallen to being fourth or fifth on the regional agenda.
The danger is that the leaders are not leading in the search for the answer, and it is that danger that makes the work of OneVoice especially important. I am saying so for a very particular reason, which is at the heart of something that is very important to me in politics. Some people will tell you that hope leads to action. And I am afraid to tell you that is profoundly wrong. Action leads to hope, and that’s what makes OneVoice important. Action leads to hope because it achieves successes, however small, that inspire confidence in greater successes. Action leads to hope because it requires the building of coalitions that can make change. Action leads to hope because it requires you to persuade people who are not immediately of your frame of mind. Action leads to hope because it allows you to say here are tangible gains as a result of what has been done. And if OneVoice is about anything, it is actually about action first and hope as its product rather than a vain call to hope that one day might produce action. The world frankly is full of people who can make speeches about why things should be better and it is not full enough of people who are making it better. That is essentially what I take the message of OneVoice to be.
My own view about the ultimate negotiations that need to take place, the substantive negotiations, is very much in line with the OneVoice vision in terms of the substance of the settlement, but I would also add, just as an international relations gloss, that my own instinct is that this Israel-Palestine question will only ever be settled in the context of a wider Arab settlement with Israel. In other words, we have to regionalize the political solution. That was, after all, the vision of the Arab Peace Initiative in 2002 -- the 10th anniversary next month is a very significant moment of reflection. It was the time when every Arab state of the Arab League said it would recognize Israel in return for the creation of a Palestinian state. So we need to regionalize the solution. In my view, we also need internationalize the diplomatic effort. If we rely only on the United States as the motor of progress in the region, then I am afraid we are going to be waiting a very long time. The United States is a very important actor in promoting international diplomacy to resolve this question, but it can’t be the only actor. It needs to be part of a wider coalition.
This is all not the main point of tonight. The main point of tonight is to say that the flame of hope for a two-state solution is only kept alive by action, and that is what I think OneVoice can do. If you think about it, there is a double meaning in the title of OneVoice. Because on its own, what is just one voice? Nothing. It’s lost into the air. But the double meaning of the organization of OneVoice is of many people speaking with one voice. And when many people speak with one voice, they are not isolated, dissipated, diluted and lost into the atmosphere. They are, rather, magnified into a call that is heard far and wide. I think what the young people have done in joining voices is to reject the pessimism that says ‘my voice is meaningless, I am alone, I can’t do anything.’ There are plenty of people propagating this view about politics, whether in Israel or in Palestine, but instead these youth are recognizing that as part of a bigger coalition, one voice can mean that louder, stronger, and more forceful sense that you are part of something bigger than yourself.
Let me just finish on the following note. I think that it is true, and some of you will know this better than I, that in many people’s hearts and heads, in Israel and in Palestine, the talk of a “peace process” rings hollow. Calls for a new, renewed, integrated “peace process” rings hollow. What isn’t hollow is the notion that human beings need to find a better way of living together than one that is separated by distrust. What OneVoice tries to do is in a way the most difficult thing, but also the most noble thing in politics, which is get people who think they have divergent interests to recognize that they actually have convergent interests. It’s my profound passion that the whole world is more unjust and less safe as a result of our failure in the Middle East, but it is also my conviction that the peoples of the Middle East have some remarkable strengths, and if only the strengths that we know exist amongst both Israelis and Palestinians could be mobilized in common cause, then the future of the Middle East will not be the bloodletting mistrust that has typified so much of the past.
So, if that is the spirit you have come here with tonight, the commitment you want to make, certainly my commitment, then I really hope you will be able to not just raise a glass but get out your checkbook to support an organization in a part of the world that has too few organizations that are flames of hope and really continue to make a difference. Thank you very much.

Speech on the NHS – opposition day debate

Speech on the NHS – opposition day debate
House of Commons
March 13th, 2012
Mr Speaker, I rise today to make a simple point to Ministers and their supporters: there is no question that it would be embarrassing to give up on the Health and Social Care Bill at this late state, but that embarrassment pales into insignificance compared to the trauma and cost – financial and political - if this Bill is the Government’s template for health service reform for the rest of this Parliament.
This Bill and its convoluted passage through Parliament has achieved a remarkable feat.
On the one hand, the Bill has taken the government hostage. It is the political equivalent of the Stockholm Syndrome – falling in love with your captor. The Prime Minister insists in one breath that he must have the Bill to save the NHS, and in the next breath claims at PMQs, that 95% of the change has already happened.
On the other hand, in the real world, the world where Ministers many moons ago said they wanted an unprecedented consensus between politicians and professionals, this is a Bill without friends. And most remarkable it is a Bill which has lost friends at every stage of its passage through Parliament. Every compromise, every “concession”, far from diminishing anxiety levels, every retrofit, has cost the Bill coherence, cost the Bill support, and raised concern about it.
The reason why confidence has been lost goes to the core of the case that the Prime Minister, and Deputy Prime Minister, and Secretary of State have made. Again and again they insist that the status quo is not an option, that reform is essential, that opponents of reform don’t understand that if the NHS stands still it will wither. The Secretary of State is at it again today.
These are enjoyable speeches to make and articles to write. I should know – I have written them and made them.
But the problem with the argument is that it is not true that the opponents of the Bill, the doctors, the nurses, the Labour Party, are arguing for the status quo. It is just not true. HMs opposite should actually read what the Leader of the Opposition, the Shadow Health Secretary have actually said about reform.
Everyone knows that there is more reform already underway in the English health service than in any other health service in the world. That is one reason why in the last decade it has been the fastest improving.
The choice is between good reform and bad reform. And this Bill is bad reform; it gives reform a bad name; in fact it threatens to set back the case for reform for a generation. Let me explain why.
In June last year, just before the report of the Future Forum, the Prime Minister said it was right to take time because “this is too important to get wrong”.
But in key areas, as amendment has been piled upon amendment, this Bill has gone from being wrong to being the most half-baked, quarter thought out shambles the NHS has ever seen. I want to highlight three issues:
First, and most important, managing major service change. Most important because everyone agrees that the health service has to change to deal with the challenges of demography, drug costs, medical technology, and this mean changes in the way services are organised.
The biggest changes we need are the shift to community based, personally managed and preventative care, with health and social care for individuals managed in an integrated way.
Yet in its hatred of planning, and confusion about competition, this Bill makes change not more likely but less.
Yet the levers for change have been neutered. CCGs are too small and weak as replacements for PCTs; the Commissioning Board is too remote and gargantuan; and as the Palmer Study of reorganisation in South East London shows, market forces on their own will not reconfigure services in a coherent way.
So far from driving the system towards a clear vision of the future, we are left with the prospect of frenetic gridlock as hard pressed NHS professionals seek to do best for their patients.
Second, promoting efficiency. The Health Select Committee Report could not be more stark: “The reorganisation process continues to complicate the push for efficiency gains.”
They are of course right. The story today that senior GPs are spending four days a week coping with new structures not serving patients is I predict the first of many.
And the price will be paid by the Chancellor, who will have to bale out the NHS, but above all by patients, as the 18 week commitment fades into memory and services suffer.
Third, accountability. If there was a germ of an idea at the outset of the
Bill, when the Secretary of State conceived it, it was to align clinical and financial responsibility. In May last year at the King’s Fund he said there was a straightforward answer to the question of how you get the best health service in the world: “You put the right people in charge”.
But a year on it is completely inexplicable who is in charge. Not GPs, because they are overseen by the greatest behemoth of them all – a National Commissioning Board. Not hospital trusts because they are answerable to Monitor and the competition authorities. Not the sectoral replacements for SHAs, because they are only temporary. Not the managers because they are being sacked – and then reapplying for jobs with new titles. Not the Clinical Senates, because their purpose has not yet been defined. And certainly not the patients.
In truth the new system is utterly byzantine. In fact it doesn’t deserve the word system. The issue is not just that few people in the NHS support the plans; it is that even fewer understand them.
And here is the real danger for the NHS. A perfect storm of rising expectations, limited resources, and multiple, over-lapping, incoherent structures of decision making.
The Prime Minister and Secretary of State promised clarity but have delivered complexity. They promised devolution to GPs but have ended up with power in the National Commissioning Board. They promised efficiency but have delivered bureaucracy.
The result will be that at the end of this Parliament we will once again be back into a debate that I thought we had buried - whether tax based health care free at the point of need is the right basis for health provision. That is the last debate we should be having, but it will be product of this Bill.
I believe the Secretary of State when he says he supports the NHS. But by the end of this Parliament, when the structural flaws are clear, he is not going to be around to defend it.
That is the true danger of this misconceived and unloved Bill, and that is why in his last act of kindness to the NHS the Secretary of State should kill it.

Youth Unemployment – a crisis we cannot afford

Youth Unemployment – a crisis we cannot afford
Deloitte, London
February 9th, 2012
ACEVO COMMISSION ON YOUTH UNEMPLOYMENT – REPORT LAUNCH
DAVID MILIBAND, OPENING REMARKS
6TH FEBRUARY 2012
Welcome everyone and thanks very much for coming. I want to start by thanking the commissioners who have put a lot of time and thought into this report for the last four months. It has been a challenging and broadening experience for all of us.
I am here for three reasons.
First, because I see in my own constituency how long term youth unemployment is again haunting a generation of young people. More young people are doing better at school and college, but more are long term claimants. In South Shields, there has been a 210 per cent increase last year, bringing the total number of those out of work for six months or more to 485. I want to make a difference for them.
Second, my first job was working in the voluntary sector – I think the voluntary sector has the expertise and idealism that the country needs – so I was delighted when ACEVO asked me to help them address this pressing problem.
Third, youth unemployment is a big problem but it is not an insoluble problem. We are not doomed to fail a million young people. We know from our own country and from abroad what can make a difference. So the message today is about commitment and innovation not just alarm.
But there is a crisis. 250 000 young people have currently been out of work for over a year. 200 000 more have been out of work for over six months. That is the centrepiece of today’s report. It is a crisis – one that we cannot afford.
Our report includes a range of measurements, claimant counts and surveys, but here are the top line figures from the ONS Labour Force Survey:
We know that the recession had a major impact, but there was also a pre-recession rise in the problem that started in 2004.
We know that unemployment hits the poorest the hardest and the commission has identified concentrated hot-spots of disadvantage across the country. In all of these 600 wards the claimant count is twice national average, and the NEET rate is at least one in four. They cover 152 local authority areas and are the areas of unemployment emergency.
As well as the social cost, there is the financial cost. The current levels of youth unemployment are a timebomb under the nation’s finances. Research for the Commission shows us that youth unemployment doesn’t just cost money now – the long-term youth unemployed work less and earn less in the future, to the tune of 2 months a year or £1800-£3300 a year, after they are 25.
Our research has shown that the benefits bill will be over £4bn this year, with over £10bn lost economic output. The problem also has enormous future costs: nearly £5bn a year in benefits and lost taxes and £3bn a year in lost economic output. So the overall net present value of direct costs over the next 10 years is a staggering £28bn. The Future costs are £2.9 billion per annum to the Treasury and £6.3 billion per annum to the economy
There are two sides to the problem: cyclical and structural.
There is no question that weak economic growth is hitting the young the hardest. So there is a short term challenge to prevent these people becoming part of the structural problem.
But the structural problem is real too. In boom times there were still between 800 000 to 900 000 NEETs, and half of them were long term NEET.
The commission took seriously the potential impact of benefit rates, immigration and the minimum wage. But they do not show up in our microeconomic studies as substantial reasons for the rise in youth unemployment.
Instead we have looked to the preparation and motivation of young people; the clarity and quality of options for non university bound; and the weakness and lateness of welfare state interventions.
We also note the drop in demand in retail, wholesale, motor trade, hospitality after 2004 – industries that disproportionately employ young people.
The Government have set an ambitious goal. The Deputy Prime Minister has said he wants to abolish long term unemployment. This is a good goal. And we welcome it. But we are not currently on track to meet it. For example, the Work Programme covers about one in ten of the young unemployed population.
So that is what our report is designed to remedy. We need young people, employers, voluntary sector and government to up our game.
Here are our recommendations.
1. Job opportunities now.
The Government has proposed 50 000 wage subsidies for 2012. But the OBR predicts falling unemployment by 2014. We therefore propose bringing forward 50 000 wage subsidies, worth over £2000 per year – from 2014 to 2012.
We think the public sector can do much better on apprenticeships, and we suggest a UCAS style national system for advertising and accessing apprenticeships.
We also highlight the issue of transport, where young people are priced out of interviews, and where local deals need to be struck to cut fares for the young unemployed and low waged.
2. The transition to work for the forgotten half of the population not going to university.
We propose a Job Ready scheme for at risk teenagers, to be run through contracts with the voluntary sector, where there is real experience of diverting young people from the route to unemployment and into employment.
We think high quality work experience is valuable, and so call for compulsory work experience for 14-16 year olds to be kept in place, contrary to government plans.
We believe that the incentives for schools and colleges to focus on all young people, including those most likely to become NEET, could be sharpened, through the Ofsted inspection framework and the implementation of the pupil premium.
We think that local authorities can do more to help young people who leave their care, who become carers, or who transition from child to adult social services. At the moment they are let down as employment hardly seems to figure in their planning.
We want public sector procurement to be used much more clearly to change the incentives for employers. For example there are local authorities which require a given number of apprenticeships for every million pounds of spend; we want to see more of this.
We also want to use the energy and example of young people, and suggest a system where every young person in work for over a year is automatically registered to mentor a young person out of work for a year.
3. Reform the welfare state so all roads lead to work.
We need to intervene earlier and more intensively for more young people once they are unemployed. This means:
· Closing the holes in the welfare to work net so that young people are engaged earlier by the Work Programme and referred to more intensive support before their unemployment increases their level of need.
· We also believe that Government plans for work experience need to include requirements on employers to offer interviews or training at the end of the work experience, to avoid them just becoming an alternative to paid work.
· After a year on the Work Programme young people need hope. We propose a part time work guarantee for every young person on the Work Programme for a year, with responsibilities for job search alongside the guarantee. We call this the First Step programme.
· And for those still on the Work Programme after two years, we need to learn from successful systems abroad, with a non time limited intermediate labour market scheme so that young people do not rotate off work placements back to unemployment.
4. Finally, implementation and affordability.
We need a new implementation mechanism. Central government is right to demand results, but local players need flexibility.
· We propose Youth Employment Zones of public, private and voluntary sectors, starting in the areas of unemployment emergency, to channel money, commission services, and engage employers and young people. The vision should be that set by Deputy Prime Minister of ending long term youth unemployment, and finding the mechanisms to do something about it.
· These partnerships could make sure additional investment, whether announced through the Youth Contract or through help for ‘problem families’, reaches young people, and also ensure far greater collaboration across the public sector.
· As a local MP I am delighted by the South Tyneside Youth Jobs Commission and with other councils that are already innovating that I hope we can discuss in the Q&A.
One obvious question is whether this is affordable. To that we do not only point to the high costs of the status quo, and the fact that the UK spends about half the OECD average on labour market interventions, but instead take on the chin the lack of new money and argue that we can use existing money far better.
· There is money in the system as the 24 agencies working on NEETS in Worcestershire in the Total Place pilot showed.
· There are resources not yet allocated, like the £150m in the Youth Contract.
· There are resources not earmarked for young people which could help them, like the approximately £700m for problem families.
· There are new government commitments on infrastructure, where young people should be beneficiaries.
· There is the possibility of help from the new European Fund discussed at last week’s summit.
· And then there are innovative ideas like Social Investment Bonds.
Conclusion
One of the submissions to the Commission talked about a “broken deal” with young people. And the truth is that aspirations are high but opportunities are not. That means a crisis of confidence in the younger generation about the ability of the political and business establishment to help change their lives.
There is a way to remedy it. The practical and necessary measures set out today. No one can say there is nothing to be done, locally or nationally.
Thanks very much and we will now open a panel discussion with the commissioners.