Patrick Hurley

I beg to move, That this House has considered place-based employment support programmes. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Dr Murrison. I am very pleased to have secured this debate. Discussions of employment policy can sometimes feel very abstract in this place; we talk about things like rates, targets and programmes, but for the people we represent, employment can be intensely personal. It is about confidence, dignity, routine and feeling that they have something to contribute. I know all that from personal experience. The depression that I fell into in the mid-’90s, at the end of the Tories’ previous disastrous spell in government when I could not get a job, had a long-lasting effect on my life. Growing up in what was then and by many measures still is one of the poorest boroughs in the country, the pressure to find a job—any job, to be honest—was immense, but the availability of jobs did not match that pressure. The local factory had closed down in 1991. My home town had barely any industry left to speak of, and most of the low-paid, temporary jobs I could find were in the next town along. It was almost a two-hour walk away for a lad who wanted to work but could not afford the bus fare to get to the factory. That is why I want to make the case today for place-based employment support—support that is rooted in communities, shaped by local need and delivered by people who understand the realities of the lives that they are working with. In my Southport constituency, I see it time and again: the people furthest from the labour market are not those who do not want to work, but people with caring responsibilities, health issues or gaps in their work history, or people who, for whatever reason, just cannot get a break. In my local authority area alone, that equates to over 26,000 people. What they need is not another box-ticking exercise, but someone who knows their area and knows what the local jobs are, and has the time to treat them as a person. I want to put on the record my thanks for the work of several place-based employment support programmes across the north of England. The Big Onion in Southport does things differently, and that is precisely why it is effective. Its work is rooted in trust. It helps people to rebuild confidence, develop skills and, in many cases, explore things such as self-employment or community enterprise as a route back into work. It does not rush people. Its approach recognises that, for many people, the first step towards employment is simply believing that they have something to offer. That kind of progress does not always show up immediately in headline figures, but it is essential if we want to make sustainable outcomes for the long term. Zink is a charity based in Buxton that started out as a food bank but, once it investigated the drivers of local food bank demand, soon branched out into offering employment support and debt advice. Its most innovative programme, microjobs, offers small, paid roles tailored to people who are far from the jobs market—often people who have been affected by homelessness or past substance abuse. Three quarters of those with a microjob subsequently move into part-time or full-time work within six months.