Welfare Reform Bill

It is not surprising that the amendment has received support around the Committee, but is there not a slight misconception here? The "work for your benefit" schemes will not very often entail work per se, will they? They are aids to obtain work eventually; for example, they might involve a confidence course, a language course or even, in particular circumstances, a caring course. However, the noble Baroness, Lady Turner, quite rightly opened up the issue of what exactly will be expected of jobseekers who are offered work. What will they be expected to agree to and on what terms and on what conditions? How much will they be paid? The noble Baroness has raised concerns that people may be compelled to undertake activities or take up employment that may be entirely inappropriate for them. This is obviously the purport of the amendment, and I agree with her that that should not happen. I know from my time in Northern Ireland, where I toured job centres, how this can end up. I met there a man with a first-class degree in computer programming who was staffing a desk. That was a mismatch of that person’s skills and the function required by the position he held. As it happened, he held the position totally voluntarily because he wanted to be close to and look after his elderly and incapacitated mother. However, there is a difference between being offered a job that is wholly unsuitable and being offered one that is merely not ideal. All sides would prefer ideal jobs to be matched with jobseekers, but that may not always be possible. On Tuesday, I referred to an element of retraining and reskilling which might be appropriate in the sort of areas that the noble Baroness, Lady Turner, spoke about. It is sad but true—especially when there is a recession, as there is now, with the number of jobseekers swelling and the number of jobs available shrinking—that it may be too idealistic to expect ideal match-ups. Some mismatch may be inevitable. However, I should say to the noble Baroness that this situation need not be permanent. A job where a participant’s skills and abilities are not being fully utilised could be seen as a stepping stone. After all, we are discussing a process of helping people back into the jobs market and edging them closer to being work-ready and, ultimately, employed. If no ideal job is immediately available, a related occupation may be the best stepping stone. I presume, however, that a personal adviser would in any event take into account the skills and abilities of the participant. I am sure that the Minister can confirm that. The motor industry was given as an example. It may well be that, three or five years down the line, we will have no motor industry in this country at all, so that those who are skilled in assembling cars cannot find an ideal job that matches exactly the sort of job they are being asked to undertake. My nephew, for example, recently lost his job. He was a laser cutter for car panels in Leicester, but unfortunately the business had to contract so much that his particular shift disappeared. He immediately retrained and got a job as a care assistant. Now, none of us would regard that as being ideal, but at least it kept him in work. This, after all, is what we are trying to achieve. I am sure that for my nephew and for many other people this will be a stepping stone back to the sort of jobs that they held originally.