We are the party of work. Labour – the clue is in the name

Last week the facts were laid out for all to see.  Across the piece this Conservative led-Government has failed to address unemployment, tackle child poverty or improve the living standards of hard working Britons. Just over three years into this jaded Government, it is not a record to be proud of.

Here are the facts.

Child poverty is on the rise.  Government policies have pushed an extra 300,000 children into absolute poverty.  Progress in tackling relative child poverty has completely stalled.

Pay packets are worth £1,300 less since the last election.  Tax and benefit changes since 2010 mean that families are, on average, £890 worse off this year.

There has been little progress in tackling unemployment since last summer. Wednesday’s Labour Market Statistics revealed that in two thirds of England, unemployment went up,  unemployment increased among women and long-term unemployment went up yet again. Long-term unemployment is now over 100,000 higher than it was at the last election.

Amidst this slew of grim news we saw a rather desperate stunt by the Liberal Democrats. In the north-east of England Nick Clegg launched what he said was a campaign to generate a million private sector jobs by the next election. It seems more of a campaign to preserve the jobs of Liberal Democrat MPs than a serious effort to bring hope to the areas of Britain that need economic renewal.  In a letter on Saturday asking for donations, Nick Clegg writes: “since the Liberal Democrats came into government in 2010, we’ve helped British businesses create more than a million jobs. Now we want to help them create a million more.  That’s the ambition behind the campaign our party launched this week: A Million Jobs for a Stronger Economy.”  This message was presumably not cleared with his coalition partners beforehand.

In truth, the Liberal Democrats and their Tory coalition partners have to bear responsibility for failing to tackle the key challenges facing us a nation.  After the 2010 election, the Prime Minister told us that the economic policies of the Coalition would lead to ‘steady growth and falling unemployment’. Unfortunately, he has been proved mistaken. There has been hardly any growth and more people are unemployed now than at the General Election. The flagship programmes of this Government quite frankly aren’t cutting it – the Work Programme for the long-term unemployed, which has coincided with an inexorable rise in long term unemployment; the Youth Contract, about which we have so far had no performance data at all, but which the Engineering Employers Federation reports has had its wage subsidies taken up by a paltry 1% of UK manufacturers. It’s not surprising that almost a million young people are still out of work.  Costly failure is the real Liberal Democrat story on employment.

The labour market is incredibly fragile.  There’s simply not enough work to go round.  The increase in employment appears to be accounted for largely by part-time self-employment.

We need far bolder measures to get people back into work. We should start with Labour’s Jobs Guarantees, that would mean any young person out of work for over a year, and anybody over 25 out of work for over two years, would be guaranteed a choice of job offers, and would have to take one of them.  Its a plan that will restore hope, boost jobs and generate sustainable growth.

We want a tax on bank bonuses, and reforms to the pension tax perks of the highest paid, to fund the guarantees.  The plan is based on the success of Labour’s Future Jobs Fund, which  cut youth unemployment in the teeth of the recession before the election.  Ministers broke a campaign promise and scrapped it straight after the election, but they have also now published an evaluation showing just how successful it was.  The evaluation estimated that, taking account of all the costs, there was a net benefit to society of £7500 for every young person who took part.

That’s the kind of action we need to take now.  Many companies want to do more to help, but they need Government to take a lead. That’s why our proposal to cover peoples wages for six months to help firms take workers on and get them embedded and trained up, get them adding value to their firms, will make a difference. It’s the approach rooted in practical action which we know works.

Many Labour councils, observing the failure of the Government’s efforts, are now putting in place pioneering schemes to help young people and others get their feet on the jobs ladder.  Labour is calling for these measures to be implemented nationwide. That would help us get more people into work where they’d be paying in tax, not consigned to long-term unemployment and the despair that it breeds.

Nick Clegg gave his speech in the North-East, where unemployment has increased in the last quarter and youth unemployment is over 25%. The country needs an explanation for the Coalition’s failure on jobs and growth, not a headline grabbing re-launch. Labour has the plan and the commitment to deliver jobs and growth. We are the party of work. Labour – the clue is in the name.

Stephen Timms MP is the Shadow Employment Minister