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Lord Spellar (Lab)

Speaking in the House of Lords on 27 November 2024

Debate

“Get Britain Working” White Paper

Contribution

My Lords, paragraph 45 refers to the fact that the economically inactive are “more likely (than the population as a whole) to have no qualifications, and some may also face other complex disadvantages, including homelessness, drug or alcohol addiction and contact with the criminal justice system”— I stress that final point. In many cases, especially regarding criminal convictions and paper qualifications, these factors become insuperable barriers to gaining employment, even when they have no relevance to the actual requirements of the job concerned. Given that the best way to get a job is to have a job, I ask the Minister to look critically at these discriminatory practices, which are as prevalent in the public sector as in the private sector, and are not only damaging to individuals and their families but incredibly economically inefficient as they impact on hundreds of thousands of our citizens.

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