Lord Evans of Rainow (Con)

My Lords, I am truly grateful to everyone who contributed with excellent speeches to this debate today. As the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, said, it has been a non-partisan debate, which means that I look forward to debating again when we get the Milburn report, as the Minister says, in the autumn, because it is so important. I referred to the coalition Government and the progress made there 15 years ago. Your Lordships’ House has an important role in helping with this NEET issue. The noble Lord, Lord Walker, made the point in his excellent contribution that his is the Labour Party, not the benefits party, and that private sector businesses—indeed, private sector family businesses—create the jobs, create the wealth, to move the nation forward. I am also grateful to the Minister for her responses. I am biased when it comes to the report of the Lords Social Mobility Committee, because I sat on that committee, but it is an excellent report and is complementary to the Milburn report, as my noble friend Lord Young said. The key recommendation is to run a pilot scheme and look at a combined authority, such as that of Andy Burnham in Greater Manchester, or indeed Bristol or elsewhere, to give them the money and see if we can learn from a focused and concentrated effort to reduce NEETs in those communities. As we say in the report, there needs to be a welfare system reset to reflect local areas and local labour markets, because those mayors know best about the specific needs. One hat does not fit all, and it should not even be on a regional basis but on a town-by-town, city-by-city basis. We cannot carry on spending more on disability and incapacity benefits than we do on defence. At the beginning of my speech, I referred to the predicted growth in welfare spending of £333 billion by 2030. During this debate, I was very sorry to learn that the Defence Secretary, John Healey, has resigned, specifically because of the lack of money being provided for our defence at this time. I pay tribute to John Healey, who was an outstanding Defence Secretary and, indeed, public servant. Finally, my noble friend Lord Young light-heartedly pointed out that of the five Conservatives on the Select Committee, three were old Etonians, but there was also one NEET. I was the NEET on that committee, and when I left school at 16 with no qualifications, I was lucky enough, as I indicated in my opening remarks, to have had a Saturday job in a shop. I also worked in my local pub, which gave me the work ethic that enabled me to get into a business career in manufacturing, in the local aviation sector near where I lived, which set me up for life. The challenge is to get young people into those early start-up jobs. Saturday jobs are a rare thing these days, as has been ably pointed out. Your Lordships’ House is in a position to help NEETs. I beg to move.