Lord Howard of Lympne (Con)

My Lords, I draw attention to my entry in the register, and in particular to my chairmanship of Direct Special Metals, a company whose recent experience I shall refer to in my brief contribution. It is always a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Skidelsky, and I join others in thanking my noble friend Lord Elliott for securing this debate, and also for the work of the Jobs Foundation over which he presides. Much of the debate—in fact all of it, so far—has understandably been taken up with macroeconomic policy, which is vitally important. I want to talk about the micro: about ways in which apparently small improvements can have a dramatic effect on the economy and on people’s lives. I will talk in particular about the recent experience of Direct Special Metals when we wanted to offer people jobs. Direct Special Metals is a recycling company based in Sheffield. We were expanding and we wanted to recruit, so we went to the local jobcentre. The story of what happened is recounted by Ian Crewe, the company’s co-founder, in Ladders of Opportunity, a recent publication by the Jobs Foundation: “First of all, they got the volume of people wrong … Then, they got the job description wrong”. But DSM persisted, and eventually we were offered 25 people. Ten of them could not hold a conversation. Of the 15 who were offered an interview, only five turned up. Of the five who turned up, four were not a fit at all, so we ended up employing just one person from the jobcentre. Ian Crewe was stunned. He said they were “local jobs … Well paid, and we do pay well. Solid hours. Not flexy hours. None of that. You thought they’d be queuing at the door. But we got just the one person. I just couldn’t believe it”. Ian did not, as so many would have done, give up. He contacted Sheffield City Council, which got involved. Soon, he was dealing with a side of the jobcentre that had previously been invisible. Two people from the jobcentre visited the company. Ian told them what the company wanted, and after that conversation things improved dramatically. The quality of the candidates got better and soon we were getting most of our staff from the jobcentre. But how many people would have persisted as Ian did? How many employers would have got in touch with the council? Indeed, why was it necessary for Ian to get in touch with the council at all? The moral of this little story is that jobcentres need to be proactive. They need to make more of an effort to understand the needs of local employers to match the vacancies with the people on their books. If they do, we might see just a little more progress in reducing the number of jobless people in our country—as we have heard this week, that number is now higher than at any time since the pandemic—and make a contribution to the growth and prosperity that we all want so very much.