Welfare Reform Bill

There is no doubt that the debate on welfare reform has hardly scratched the surface of the impact on older workers, so I am grateful to the noble Countess, Lady Mar, for her explanation of this set of amendments. However, I rather regret that I am only partially convinced by them. There is a weakness in the labour market for those who would not thank me for describing them as being "of advancing years"; indeed, neither the noble Countess nor I would welcome that description being applied to ourselves. Nevertheless, the problem is increased by the recession, which makes older workers more vulnerable to being passed over when it comes to finding new employment opportunities. I have no doubt that the Minister will tell us that the Government are committed to ensuring all forms of equality and doing away with anything that might be seen as ageist. That is all well and good and, of course, we commend it. However, we must not overlook the fact that, as the noble Countess made clear, those people who are over 50 and find themselves out of work might not have skills and qualifications that are as transferable or adaptable as those of people who are younger and acquired their skills more recently. In those circumstances, it should be a sine qua non that reskilling will be discussed at the work-focused interview; I hope that the Minister can confirm that. In this connection, I have a tenant in part of my house who some years ago lost his job as an under-manager for a large hardware chain and found that no similar job was available locally. He then discovered that there was a job vacancy as a baker in a local supermarket, for which he applied. He got the job and was retrained. I am sure that noble Lords can think of people in similar situations; indeed, I can think of one fairly close to the Minister: his predecessor. Joking apart, these examples are, to an extent, voluntary. The Bill talks of an element of compulsion, but the examples are pertinent for all that. Given that the age at which people are deemed to be too old for the workplace, and therefore eligible for their pensions, is by necessity rising, it is essential that we do not have a situation where there are large numbers of people, who may well have a near lifetime of work behind them but are still years away from their pensions, languishing on the unemployment register. In that respect, the noble Countess has a good point that steps ought to be taken to identify need and address problems. However, is that not true of all age groups? It is what, I presume, the tailored, personalised work interviews with a personal adviser will look at. They will identify any special experience and support which each person requires to help them back into work. Again, I am sure that the Minister can confirm that. The noble Countess’s proposals are, therefore, probably unnecessary and potentially damaging to the very people whom she aims to assist. The amendments would take the over-50s out of the scheme being set up by Clause 1 and hold them apart indefinitely, while a programme of research is carried out. If there needs to be some kind of investigation into unemployment among the over-50s, it would be better if it were conducted concurrently with the new welfare provisions and could then be used to inform the personal advisers if any change in their approach to older jobseekers needed to be made. That would inform not only the personal advisers but the Government, because this Bill is, as we all noted at Second Reading, littered with negative resolution orders, for the very reason that rapid changes may need to be made. This is one case whereby, as a result of the research that the noble Countess is calling for, a rapid change may very well need to be made—perhaps more than one.