Government Employment Strategy

The hon. Gentleman anticipates a point that I shall come to. As part of an employment strategy, in determining what we mean by sustainable we must also consider what makes a job sustainable. We need to examine what barriers there are that cause people to leave work. For many people going into the labour market, certainly for lone parents, sustainability depends on such issues as appropriate, easily accessible and affordable child care. My hon. Friend the Member for Bradford, North pointed out that there are real difficulties here in London with the affordability and availability of child care. There are problems for parents of disabled children wherever in the country they live. The employment level of parents with disabled children is 16 per cent., which is abysmally low. That is not to say that all those parents want to stay at home with their children; they often want to go out to work, whether in a part-time or a full-time job. We need to examine all the issues that make a job sustainable, which could include child care or the prompt payment of in-work benefits. My hon. Friend the Minister is not entirely accountable for that, because in-work benefits are paid through the tax credits system. There must be close working relationships with Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs to ensure that the transition from out-of-work benefits to in-work support is handled properly and that there are prompt assessments. As we heard earlier, there are issues about housing benefit. Some people do not realise that they might still be entitled to it when they are in work, depending on the level of their wages. Those people need to be made aware of that. The issue of sustainability leads me on to the test that can be carried out to establish what people’s income will be in employment as opposed to on benefit. As the Chairman outlined, many people on benefit are fearful that they will lose the security of their, albeit very low, income when they go into the world of work. They are not entirely sure whether all the entitlements that they receive in work will match those that they receive out of work. For the overwhelming majority of people, being in work pays, but it does not pay for certain groups, and some lone parents with high child care and travel costs might well be no better off or only slightly better off in work. If we are to ensure that work is sustainable, we need a strategy to address all those barriers.