Meeting of the Parliament

Meeting date: Wednesday, October 5, 2016

Official Report 944KB pdf

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Employment Services (Devolution)

The next item of business is a debate on motion S5M-01793, in the name of Jamie Hepburn, on devolution of employment services. I call Jamie Hepburn to speak to and move the motion. [Interruption.] Can I stop you, Mr Hepburn? There seems to be something wrong with your microphone. Is your card in upside down?

15:15  

I would never make such a mistake, Presiding Officer, but yes—it was. [Laughter.]

I welcome this opportunity to tell Parliament how I propose to deliver on one of the first of the powers to be devolved under the Scotland Act 2016—the power for Scottish ministers to deliver employability support to help disabled people and those at risk of long-term unemployment to seek, obtain and retain employment.

The Parliament first debated those new powers in April 2015, which marked the start of a process of engagement on the services that we want in Scotland. We have taken a consultative and collaborative approach to policy and programme development in order to listen to views and assess policy options. We have engaged with openness and determination with the United Kingdom Department for Work and Pensions and Jobcentre Plus and we have made significant progress as a result. I am pleased to say that we are now coming to the significant point where we move from designing services to delivering them. Importantly, the Government intends to deliver new powers for Scotland in the interests of the people of Scotland, with dignity and respect being central to our thinking.

Today, I want to set out the way forward for the smooth and seamless delivery of new devolved services and how those services will support people into employment. I will also set out where we will use powers differently in Scotland, including how our devolved employment programme will interact with the systems of conditionality and sanctions that remain reserved to Westminster.

Today is also an opportunity for members to set out their views on these matters. I look forward to the debate. To be clear at the outset—it is always useful to have clarity at the outset—we will not support the Conservative amendment, but we will support the Labour amendment. Had the Green amendment been selected, we would also happily have supported it.

We have a significant and unique opportunity to deliver employment support in Scotland, and I intend to take that opportunity to deliver employment support services that will reflect fair work and social and economic inclusion; put an emphasis on partnership delivery, building on our strengths in both the public and private sectors and in local authority, third sector and specialist delivery; treat service users with respect; and take people with us, encouraging and supporting people into work rather than cajoling them, regardless of their individual circumstances.

It is fair to say that delivering on the new powers is not without its challenges. There are limitations to the powers that are being devolved by the UK Government. Devolution is limited to powers to replace the existing contracted services that are delivered by the DWP in the work programme for long-term unemployed people and work choice, which is a voluntary disability employment service.

The Devolution (Further Powers) Committee in the previous session of Parliament shared our disappointment that the degree of devolution does not deliver on the Smith commission’s recommendation. Only a week after the publication of the Smith commission agreement, the UK Government, despite our strong case for a swift transfer of powers, announced that, rather than devolve services on the expiry of its existing commercial arrangements in March 2016—as had been agreed—it would extend the contracts to March 2017.

In the 2015 autumn budget statement, the then UK chancellor announced the replacement of the current programmes with a new work and health programme in England and Wales. That programme is still undefined, meaning that disabled people and those who are long-term unemployed in England and Wales still do not know what support services they will have. Members can be assured that we are determined to give people in Scotland certainty about the future support that our programme will offer.

By far the biggest impact of the UK spending review has been the massive funding cuts for those services. We estimate that expenditure on current DWP programmes in Scotland this year will total around £53 million. In December 2015, the DWP indicated a budget for the delivery of new devolved programmes in 2017-18 of just £7 million. That represents a budget cut of almost 90 per cent. As I think Parliament and the people of Scotland would expect the Scottish Government to do, we have argued that that cut is unacceptable. It was made with no prior consultation after we had started the consultation on our services and it significantly undermined our plans.

The shifting policy and financial landscape imposed by the UK Government has therefore been a challenge. However, we are meeting that challenge head on, and we are on track to deliver our programme for government commitment to deliver devolved employability support services in Scotland from April 2017. We have a clear sense of the services that we should aim to deliver that is informed by the engagement we have undertaken. Building on that engagement, we will continue to listen to those who rely on the services so that we can use their experience in developing our services.

Just this morning, I met a group of unemployed single parents in Edinburgh with One Parent Families Scotland, and I heard how important it is that support for people to gain employment can adapt to meet the needs of the individual and be flexible enough to recognise childcare needs, working patterns and travel to work issues.

We are also responding to the challenge posed by the reduction in funding. Scottish ministers have agreed to provide up to £20 million in additional funding above the reduced settlement from the UK Government to replace the work choice and work programme schemes. That triples the funding that is being made available to exercise the new devolved employability powers from 1 April 2017. We have made a further commitment for subsequent years up to 2021 to invest £20 million a year over and above the UK Government’s settlement to ensure that those who most need support can get it.

Our investment means that we can create a strong platform for delivering future services from 1 April 2017 and in subsequent years. It means that we will continue to support the most vulnerable unemployed people in Scotland, including those who have a disability. Our aim is to have employment support in Scotland that meets the needs of people who need support and the needs of employers, that reflects the current delivery landscape, and that helps to deliver sustainable employment and economic growth.

To start to deliver that, I announced, on 8 September, a two-part approach to services from April 2017. In work first Scotland, Scottish ministers will agree a one-year contract with the current providers of work choice in Scotland. The service will deliver employment support and advice for up to 3,300 people who have disabilities, with a tailored approach to meet individual needs, including pre-work and in-work support. The procurement process is already under way, and I expect contracts to be signed next month.

In work able Scotland, Skills Development Scotland will deliver a one-year transitional employability service for clients who have a disability or health condition, are at risk of long-term unemployment and want to enter work. The service will provide a combination of advice, support and coaching. The schemes will ensure continuity in 2017 of effective and accessible support for those who need it most. That means we are building on existing assets and delivery strengths, both in the Scottish Government and in Skills Development Scotland.

Crucially however, the transitional year will also give us the space to define the service that we want to put in place from April 2018. That is why engagement with those such as One Parent Families Scotland who are interested in the services that we will take forward will continue to be important. Members’ views on the matters that I am expressing today will, of course, be useful.

Perhaps the minister is going to cover this, but I want to make sure that he does. I have been following the exchanges between the minister and Angela Constance and the UK Government about the intention to make the services voluntary rather than mandatory. I would whole-heartedly support that. I want to be clear that the Scottish Government and the UK Government have agreed on that.

Ms McNeill will not be disappointed, as I will come on to that point. Our motion clearly indicates the direction of travel in which we want to take things and I do not think it is too different from where she hopes they will go.

As part of delivering our employment programme, we are taking forward a wider and longer-term agenda of integration and alignment of services. We are working to align and join up services, to redefine the current complex delivery landscape, and to set out where policies could better align and where roles and responsibilities could be clearer across Scottish Government policies and programmes and across local authority and third sector provision.

To be clear, the process will not be complete by April 2017, or indeed by April 2018, but it is one that we must begin if we are to ensure maximum benefit for those whom we need to support.

We are also working to align, where we can, with Jobcentre Plus. The Scottish Government has long argued for Scotland to have full powers over employability policy, programmes and delivery, including in relation to the operation of Jobcentre Plus. There are still strong and compelling arguments for that, not least as part of the process of better alignment of services that I have just mentioned, as it would give us a more coherent set of powers to develop the links between Jobcentre Plus and devolved services, as well as the ability to change the culture, focus and approach of Jobcentre Plus. However, the current political reality is that Jobcentre Plus will remain reserved, and it will be a critical conduit for people to pass through into devolved employability services.

The Scottish ministers, and indeed the Parliament and much of Scottish civic society, have long been critical of the UK Government’s approach to mandating—in effect, forcing—people to take part in work programmes without always considering other issues that affect their lives, which has led to too many people being sanctioned.

Sanctions often affect the most vulnerable in society, including lone parents, young people and those with a disability. People who face sanctions are often unable to comply with the conditions that they are requested to comply with for a range of complex reasons, including many practical and personal barriers. Even with the devolution of the new area of responsibility that we are debating today, the UK Government will remain responsible for decisions over claimant conditions in its social security system and any penalties that are imposed if those conditions are not met.

The sanctions regime that is in operation remains the policy and responsibility of the UK Government, but it is not the policy of the Scottish Government. Existing Scottish programmes to support people on the pathway to employment are voluntary, and they give people the opportunity to participate in activities to support them into work. To come to Pauline McNeill’s point, I believe that we should continue to operate a voluntary approach with our devolved employment programme, in which the DWP’s conditionality requirement, and therefore its sanctions, will not apply.

In December 2015, the then Secretary of State for Work and Pensions indicated that the extent of conditionality in our devolved employment programme was for us to determine. I therefore wrote to the current Secretary of State for Work and Pensions to seek confirmation that, while Jobcentre Plus will clearly have a central role in referring its clients into our employment programme, the Department for Work and Pensions should not require that it does so on a mandatory basis or that Jobcentre Plus clients must take part in our employment programme to continue to receive social security support.

The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions has replied to my letter and has set out a commitment for us to work together on the approach that I want to take forward. He has reiterated, too, that the conditions in our devolved programmes are for the Scottish ministers to determine. However, let me be clear. I have decided that I do not want our enabling, person-centred approach to be undermined by participation under threat of DWP sanction, and my clear expectation is that the DWP will respect that perspective and our way forward. On that basis, I have today again written to the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, and I will continue to pursue the matter with him when we meet next week.

I believe that the programmes that we will take forward will work better if they are voluntary. I believe that our programmes will work better if we bring people with us. I believe that services will work better if they are designed around people’s needs. I believe that our programmes will work better if they are seen as an opportunity, not a threat, but I do not believe that that will happen if we enforce mandatory participation in devolved programmes.

We will maintain our good progress to deliver services in 2017, and contracts will be in place before the end of this year. Next year, I will announce to Parliament further details of progress on our 2018 service.

The Scottish Government will deliver devolved employment programmes that support people into work and help them to tackle the barriers to employment that they face. We will do that with fairness, dignity and respect at the forefront of our minds and at the heart of our services. I urge Parliament to endorse that approach this evening.

I move,

That the Parliament welcomes the devolution of employment support programmes under the Scotland Act 2016, with a transitional year of operation from April 2017 and a longer-term programme from 2018 that will reflect fair work and social and economic inclusion, ensure that people are at the heart of a service that treats people with fairness and respect and which will help deliver an inclusive, socially-just, equal and prosperous Scotland; regrets the funding reductions by the UK Government for these employability support services of almost 90% in the first year of devolved services in 2017-18, but notes that the Scottish Government is providing additional resources to ensure continuity of employment support for the most vulnerable in Scottish society, including disabled people, and welcomes voluntary access to Scottish devolved services that will support people into work, as opposed to mandatory participation and the threat of benefit sanctions by the Department for Work and Pensions.

15:29  

I welcome the devolution of employment support services; they will add valuably to the Scottish Government’s already considerable powers to shape and improve the labour market. There is much in the Government’s motion—indeed, there is much in the Government’s approach—that we support and agree with. We agree that employment support services should

“reflect fair work and social and economic inclusion”

and

“ensure that people are at the heart”

of the service provided, and that the service should treat

“people with fairness and respect”.

We agree with all of that.

Our amendment seeks to do three things. First, it recognises that

“For those who can, work represents the best route out of poverty”.

Those are not my words; they are the words of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, which has been at the forefront of research into social policy in Britain for decades.

Helping people move from welfare into work has been the main driver behind the welfare reforms programmes that the Conservatives have undertaken since we came to office in the United Kingdom in 2010, and they are working.

Will the member take an intervention?

Will the member take an intervention?

I will make a little progress, and then I will give way to Mr Macpherson.

Through the work programme, more than half a million jobseekers have found work lasting six months or longer; long-term unemployment has fallen to its lowest level since 2009; the number of people claiming unemployment benefits has fallen to its lowest level since 1975; and there are 31.7 million people in work in the United Kingdom—up by more than 2.7 million since 2010. In Scotland, the work programme has helped more than 47,000 Scots back to work.

In his speech, the minister was right to recognise that this is about not just jobs but job security and the quality of jobs. Here too, there is good news—not that one would necessarily know that from what the minister has just said. In the year to August, almost two thirds of the rise in employment came from full-time work. Since 2010, 95 per cent of growth in employment in the UK has come from permanent employees or people working for themselves. An innovative design feature of the work programme is the way in which it incentivises sustained job outcomes. It is not just getting people into work but keeping them in work that matters. Recognising and welcoming those facts—inexplicably overlooked in the Government’s motion—is the second function of our amendment.

For the sake of clarity, completeness and accuracy, does Mr Tomkins acknowledge that the Joseph Rowntree Foundation’s report is also highly critical of zero-hours contracts and insecure work, for example—measures that are controlled at the Westminster level? Does he acknowledge that the report also strongly encourages the payment of the real living wage—the voluntary living wage—which the Scottish Government promotes at every opportunity?

On zero-hours contracts, I have just said that 95 per cent of the jobs growth in the United Kingdom since 2010 has been in full-time employment or in self-employment. It was the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition Government in 2013, I think, that legislated to ban the most exploitive zero-hour contracts across the United Kingdom.

There are also more disabled people in work today: in the past two years, 360,000 people with a disability have found work who were not previously in employment. In the UK there are now 3.4 million people with a disability in work. That is unambiguously good news. On that front, however, we recognise that there is still more to do. The disability employment gap has reduced in recent years—that is to be welcomed—but it remains far too big. Therefore, it is Scottish Conservative policy to halve it. If the SNP would join us in making that happen, it would have our full support. Perhaps the minister could say something about that in his winding-up speech.

Will the member take an intervention?

Not at the moment.

Thirdly, our amendment calls on the Scottish Government to use its powers to address what can only be described as the dismal fact that Scotland has the lowest employment growth rate anywhere in the United Kingdom. It is lower than in the north-east of England, the north-west of England, Wales and Northern Ireland. London has an employment growth rate that is some five times greater than Scotland’s; the east Midlands has an employment growth rate that is twice Scotland’s. Why?

Will the member give way?

Let me finish the point, and then I will give way to the minister.

Why is job creation so much worse in the SNP’s Scotland than it is anywhere else in the UK? Does it have anything to do with the chronic skills shortages in the Scottish economy? Those skills shortages are made so much worse by the SNP’s slashing of 152,000 college places and by the fact that Skills Development Scotland has had its budget cut by more than £25 million, or 13 per cent, since 2011.

Will the member give way?

I have already said that I will give way to the minister in a minute.

Those skills shortages are hardly helped by the low number of apprenticeships in the Scottish economy. In England, there are nearly twice as many apprenticeships per head of population as there are in the SNP’s Scotland. If the minister would like to respond to any of those points, I will happily give way to him.

That is very interesting because what is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. Professor Tomkins suggested that there was a degree of omission from our motion, but there was a degree of omission from some of the labour market statistics that he quoted. Perhaps he could reflect on the fact that, according to the latest labour market statistics, the unemployment rate in Scotland is somewhat lower than the rate in the UK. Scotland’s unemployment rate is 4.7 per cent in comparison with the UK rate of 4.9 per cent. In addition, we outperform the UK on youth employment, unemployment and inactivity, and productivity in Scotland is rising higher than in the UK as a whole.

Indeed—I am coming to that.

What did we hear from the minister today about the Scottish Government’s plans to address any of those problems of skills shortages and apprenticeships? Nothing. What did we hear about why the inactivity rate is higher in Scotland than it is in the rest of the UK; why the employment rate is lower in Scotland than it is in the rest of the UK; or why the employment rate is lower in Scotland now than it was in 2007, while it is higher in the rest of the UK than it was in 2007 and is getting worse in Scotland but getting better in the rest of the UK? What did we hear about any of that? Nothing.

Instead, we heard more nationalist moaning about British Government policy. We heard not about the success of the work programme but about its budget. The truth is that the work programme has worked. Unemployment has fallen by 30 per cent and long-term unemployment has fallen by 35 per cent. The employment rate in the United Kingdom has gone up. The number of British jobs has gone up. The number of full-time jobs has gone up. The number of women in employment has gone up. The number of disabled people in employment in Britain has gone up. The work programme has played its role in helping with that.

The all-party House of Commons Work and Pensions Committee—which is chaired by a Labour MP, I note—concluded in a report that was published at the end of last year that the work programme has

“streamlined the procurement of welfare-to-work ... created a stable, GB-wide welfare-to-work infrastructure”

and produced good job outcomes

“for a greatly reduced cost”

to the taxpayer—indeed, for about half the cost of the programmes that it replaced.

Instead of bleating, why does the minister not reflect for a moment on whether the programmes that the Scottish Government runs deliver for the taxpayer anything like the value for money that the work programme has delivered?

Only about 10 per cent of public spend in Scotland on employment support, skills and apprenticeships is spent by the DWP; the vast majority of expenditure is undertaken by bodies that are already devolved, such as Scottish Enterprise and Skills Development Scotland. Do they achieve the results that have been secured by the DWP’s work programme? Do they achieve the same job outcomes and the same value for money?

This afternoon’s debate is an opportunity for the Parliament to discuss all these matters. It is an opportunity that we on this side of the chamber welcome, for there are pressing questions demanding urgent answers from Scottish ministers, and I have raised a number of them in my speech.

As I said at the beginning of my speech, I welcome the devolution of employment support services. I recognise that the labour market of 2017 and beyond requires different priorities from those that we needed in the immediate aftermath of Labour’s recession in 2010. However, I say to the minister that in designing the new devolved programmes, he must not throw the baby out with the bath water. He should take what is best about the work programme and work choice and build on them, not jettison what is proven to have worked well. He should keep the contracted-out model; keep the system free from overprescriptive interventions from ministers and let the professionals get on with it; and keep a system of differential payments and avoid the temptation to think that one size fits all. Most important, he should keep incentivising sustained job outcomes and high-quality job outcomes.

I move amendment S5M-01793.1, to leave out from “regrets” to end and insert:

“recognises that, for those who can, the best route out of poverty is work, and that one of the principal functions of social security is to smooth the journey from welfare to work; understands that the UK Government’s Work Programme has assisted more than 47,000 people in Scotland into the workplace and that there are now 2.7 million more people in work in the UK than there were in 2010, and calls on the Scottish Government to exercise its powers under the devolution of employment support programmes to address the dismal fact that Scotland has the lowest employment growth rate of any nation or region of the UK.”

15:39  

In moving my amendment, I join the Scottish Government and all those party to the Smith agreement in welcoming the devolution of work support programmes for the long-term unemployed and other groups who find it difficult to get into work.

I agree with one aspect of Adam Tomkins amendment, which is that the best route out of poverty is work. However, like Ben Macpherson, I would say that it is the type of work that matters.

Programmes for the long-term unemployed should be designed to upskill people, in the recognition that the vast majority of people on benefits do not want to rely on them. It is clear, however, that the UK’s current work programme is failing too many people who need real and genuine support to find work and to obtain modern-day skills in order to get suitable well-paid work. In 2014, DWP statistics showed that work programme contractors had been responsible for twice as many sanctions as job outcomes for the people who were referred to them. That is just plain ridiculous.

According to the Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations, the system is

“A cluttered and inflexible landscape of provision”

that is

“inadaptable to the individual needs of people”.

The figures for those progressing from low skills to high skills are ridiculously low—it is about not just employment but upskilling. Something is very wrong.

The task is indeed a great one in today’s world. The Tinder Foundation has said that 90 per cent of all new jobs require digital skills and two thirds of employers say that they would not employ anyone without basic computer skills. Interestingly, a staggering 800,000 people in Scotland still do not have access to the internet, and we must remember that.

The task for any Government is challenging, but, for many, the critique of our service is far worse. Many see the work programme as a damaging and cruel system that forces destitution on those who are reported for failing to comply with the strict—and sometimes impossible—conditions that are set.

The charity Mind has said that the work programme is “fundamentally flawed” and is

“causing a huge amount of distress without achieving results”.

Mind’s research says that the programme is having a negative impact on people with mental health problems and it reports that the programme is actually making those people less able to work.

If those things are true, why does the member think that a Labour-chaired, all-party House of Commons committee failed to record any such criticisms in its report on the work programme last year?

Is the member saying that Mind is making up those statistics? I will go on to talk about lone parents—will he say that those figures are also made up? I will let him come back on that when I get to that point.

It seems that the problem is a matter of design. There has been a dramatic increase in appeals through tribunals and the overwhelming number of those appeals are upheld. What more evidence do we need?

There are groups who fare worse than most when it comes to sanctions and lack of support. One of those groups is lone parent families. Full conditionality with the most serious sanctions will apply to parents who claim jobseekers allowance when their child is five years old. More limited sanctions will be imposed on parents with children as young as one year old. According to One Parent Families Scotland, the regime is intensifying. With the roll-out of universal credit, single-parent families with children as young as three will soon be subject to the same conditions.

Recent studies on conditionality by a number of UK universities have highlighted that being late or missing an appointment for whatever reason can lead to sanctions, creating desperately poor situations for many people. It was reported that, in one case, a man was sanctioned even though he told the job centre that he had a hospital appointment.

Sanctions can be applied for any number of reasons, including because a claimant does not want to apply for a job for which they think that their skills are inappropriate. A friend of mine whose car broke down on the way to an appointment about his self-employment was sanctioned for six weeks for failing to turn up on time.

I suggest that there is something very wrong with the system that we have come to know. As has been mentioned, it can take people months to get through an appeal system, and many claimants simply give up because it is too difficult for them to navigate.

People are often shocked at the reasons why they are sanctioned. I have heard many stories of people who were not aware that a sanction was going to be imposed on them. The wide use of the work programme service, which is run by private contractors, sometimes leads to unachievable job searches and onerous conditions. That is far from a dignified approach, when people are at the lowest point in their lives.

We in the Labour Party believe that the cruel and ineffective sanctions regime should not be the basis of the approach in Scotland. Of course, that is largely a matter for the UK Government. However, as the minister said, we have a chance to create a completely new Scottish service with the devolved powers.

In relation to our Labour Party amendment, I believe that most if not all the parties in the Parliament agree that we should have a new accord of dignity and respect for all those who need that support in their daily lives. As the SCVO described in its briefing for the debate, the new Scottish employability service could adopt a human rights-based approach to helping people into work.

We support the Scottish Government in creating a non-mandatory scheme, provided that that is clearly within our powers. We believe that outcomes will be better if people opt in to the schemes. On the exchange that I had with the minister, I want to be clear that, although we support the approach that the Government is taking, we do not want that to result in an unnecessary fight between the Scottish and UK Governments. I ask to be kept apprised of the on-going discussions.

Will the member give way?

You will have to address the issue in your closing remarks, minister. Will you wind up, please, Ms McNeill?

Yes, I will.

From 2018, we will have full responsibility for employment programmes. The transition period must not result in any detriment to existing users and we must ensure that we create a fairer and more dignified Scottish system when the powers come in 2018.

I move amendment S5M-01793.3, to insert at end:

“, believes that those who want to work but need extra support are given it and that support should be based on the principles of dignity and respect, not cuts and punitive sanctions; recognises that further action is needed in order to significantly reduce involuntary unemployment and move towards full employment, and calls on the Scottish Government to be bold and innovative in designing Scotland’s future employment services, including a review of the punitive and discredited content and delivery of assessments, as well as identifying the needs of local economies and the ability to tailor employment programmes to suit them.”

We move to the open debate. We are really pushed for time, so we will have to be quite strict about speeches taking no more than six minutes.

15:46  

I thank the minister for his comments, particularly his reiteration that people are to be treated with dignity and fairness in the delivery of employment services, which are to be devolved. It is not as much as we would like, particularly for those of us in the Scottish National Party, but they are to be devolved and we have to work with what we have.

I welcome the intention to have voluntary access to the services that support people into work. The threat of mandatory participation and sanctions by the DWP not only affects the most vulnerable in our society but in many cases is allegedly killing them. I will come back to that later.

I thank Pauline McNeill for her contribution, in which she recognised the principles of dignity and respect, as mentioned in the Labour amendment.

The minister mentioned the Tory UK Government’s decision to cut moneys for employment support by 87 per cent, from £53 million to £7 million. In the words of Martin Sime, the chief executive of the SCVO, that move,

“As well as flying in the face of the Smith agreement ... is a clear breach of the no detriment principle”.

We have to remember that. I welcome the additional moneys from the Scottish Government to ensure the continuity of employment support.

Many people are affected by sanctions and conditionality. As I said, I want to return to the issues of people who are particularly affected. I will mention one parent families, young people and those with mental health issues. As Pauline McNeill mentioned, one parent families have a very difficult time. The parents have extra responsibilities that others do not necessarily have. They have to juggle childcare and in many cases, particularly with women, they care for elderly relatives. As the minister mentioned, it is important that we in the Parliament and the Scottish Government take a holistic approach and do not just look at various isolated instances.

For a single parent, it is very difficult to get their kids to school or to cope during school holidays. If they have childcare responsibilities, they cannot always match the hours that they are supposed to work with their responsibilities. If someone happens to miss an appointment, they will be sanctioned. I thank One Parent Families Scotland for giving us information on that. In one particular case, a lady tried her very best to get to work but, because of her caring responsibilities and responsibilities for young children, she ended up being sanctioned and losing her benefits. Eventually, she nearly lost her home, because she could not afford to pay her rent.

That is what is happening now. We can take on board what Adam Tomkins says, but the Westminster Tory Government—he is part of that Government’s party—is responsible for sanctioning people, which puts the most vulnerable people’s lives at risk and makes those people live in absolute misery.

Young people have particular issues. They sometimes have frantic lifestyles, they might come from broken homes and their parents sometimes do not give them advice. We have to look at those issues and ensure that young kids are treated with dignity when they come out of care or school and into the jobs market.

It is all right for Adam Tomkins to talk about getting people into work, and I know that Pauline McNeill will agree with that part of the motion. We all agree that the best way for people, even people with mental health problems, to get out of poverty is to get into work—but that should not be at any cost. People should not be pushed into work simply because the ideology of the Tory party at Westminster is that people must go to work, even if they have a serious illness.

Such an illness might not be that apparent, which is why I will come on to people with mental health problems. I visited the Scottish Association for Mental Health in Flourish House in my constituency, as I am sure other members have. I have spoken to people and heard how difficult it is for them to put themselves forward for an assessment. If they do not do that, they are sanctioned. If they forget what day their assessment is, they are sanctioned. If someone has a mental health problem, we will not be able to see a bone protruding, but they still have a problem. They may be well if they are taking their medication on the day that they go to their assessment, but when they come out of it and are told that they have been sanctioned, they will be away back down again.

I mentioned that people commit suicide—MSPs will have had letters about that. A chap in my constituency did not turn up and letters were sent to his door. The only reason that that man was found was that his door was broken down because he had not paid his rent. The man was dead. He had taken his own life, and a letter that said he had been sanctioned was found there.

That is what we are facing. I am not accusing anyone in particular, but we need to recognise that people have particular problems at times and we should be looking at them with dignity and respect. I welcome the Government’s approach to that.

15:52  

In addition to providing financial security for individuals, there are economic, social and moral arguments that, for those who are able to, work is the most effective way to improve the wellbeing of individuals, their families and their communities. As of April next year, employment services will be devolved to Scotland under the Scotland Act 2016. The Scottish Conservatives have asked that, rather than start from scratch, we look at what works in the UK system and adapt it to meet Scotland’s needs.

Surely—

Minister—if I can just get to my seat. [Laughter.]

That is a turn up for the books. It is usually the other way round, Presiding Officer.

Ms Wells will surely welcome the fact that for the transition in 2017, we are contracting the current providers of the work choice programme to deliver our new service.

I welcome that, and I will come to it later.

We will have a transitional year from 2017 and a longer-term employability service from April 2018 onwards. Undoubtedly, accusations today will focus on the employment services of the past and a re-examination of all that is wrong with the system. I acknowledge some of the flaws—the assessment of those with long-term illnesses, for example—which is why I was pleased to see that this weekend the new work and pensions minister, Damian Green, said that those with long-term illnesses will stop having to have their benefits reassessed. That will benefit tens of thousands of claimants.

However, repeated criticism moves us away from the purpose of today’s debate. I want to know from the Scottish Government how its proposed services will give the best support to those who face the greatest barriers to employment and whether it looks to carry forward any elements of the current work programme that are shown to be working. As has already been said, we understand that it will look at that.

Will the member take an intervention?

Not at the moment. Let me move on.

Let us look at the positives of the UK work programme and work choice, and more generally at the benefits of working with existing local—often voluntary—services to create broader systems that meet diverse needs.

Between 2011 and 2015 the work programme helped nearly 50,000 people in Scotland back into work, and in the wider UK long-term unemployment has fallen to 480,000—its lowest level since 2009. The elements of support provided vary, typically involving regular contact with an adviser, an assessment of the employment needs of the user, IT training and support and help with finding suitable jobs and preparing for interviews.

However, I was concerned to read that there are approximately 402,000 young Scots aged between 16 and 24 who are not in education, employment or training. [Annie Wells has corrected this contribution. See end of report.] Many of them—as Action for Children Scotland points out—are from disadvantaged backgrounds and require extra support to find and sustain employment; that is certainly something to be gained from working with the voluntary sector.

It is great to see examples: there is not only Action for Children, which runs its own Youthbuild service, but companies such as Asda, which in collaboration with The Prince’s Trust has created its own get into retail scheme. Stores in Linwood, Govan, Bishopbriggs and Robroyston offered 17 unemployed young people the chance to gain work experience, accredited skills and training in a four-week training programme. Crucially, all 17 of the graduates on their most recent programme have been offered permanent contracts.

When I worked in retail, I was once the champion for Marks and Spencer’s marks and starts scheme, a four-week programme designed to help people with health conditions or disabilities, young people, single parents and people who are homeless or at risk of becoming homeless.

I also want to highlight the success of work choice, a programme that supports jobseekers who have a disability by providing a wider and more intensive range of support to help them remain economically independent. Since it was introduced, there have been nearly 12,000 referrals to work choice in Scotland—it is a voluntary scheme—leading to over 9,500 starts and nearly 4,500 job outcomes. It is currently run by the Shaw Trust and Momentum Scotland, and success stories include those such as HMP Low Moss, where the Shaw Trust has delivered a successful pilot project helping prisoners with health problems and disabilities to move into work upon release. As a result of the pilot, 100 per cent of participants have moved into employment.

I am pleased to see that the Scottish Government has recognised the worth of the programme, setting up its own work first Scotland and work able Scotland schemes as part of a one-year contract between the Scottish ministers and the current third sector providers of work choice in Scotland.

Ultimately, as has been mentioned before, I believe that getting people into work is the best way to help them out of poverty. People want to work; we know that—we have seen it. We have heard the references to the Joseph Rowntree Foundation report. I want to see the process of creating and administering employment services in Scotland being done in a positive and can-do way.

15:58  

Although some of the parties—mine included—that are represented in the chamber were disappointed with the overall package of powers that have been, or are being, devolved by the new Scotland Act 2016, some individual powers can be used in creative and radical ways, perhaps even in ways that were not anticipated by the UK Government when it devolved them. Devolution of employment services is a very good example of that; we will have to be creative, given the massive cut that Westminster has passed on.

The current model of employment support that is used by the Westminster Government is a narrow one. Evaluations of the current work programme show that participants are often forced into jobs as soon as possible, regardless of whether the job will provide them with appropriately paid and sustainable employment that allows them to progress in the labour market. It risks trapping people in low-wage, low-status employment, as a number of studies have demonstrated.

The support that is offered by UK programmes is often generic in nature. Although help with writing CVs and applying for jobs can be very beneficial for some programme participants, people who experience multiple and complex barriers to employment often need individualised packages of support that bring in physical and mental health services, social services and training.

UK Governments have tested such integrated packages of support, but they were not included in the work programme. The condition management programme, for example, which helped people to manage their health conditions, was lost in the switch-over to the work programme in 2011. The assumption was that market competition would drive private sector providers to offer such support, but that has not been the case. The DWP’s own survey of work programme participants found that over 70 per cent of those who were on the programme and had a health condition were not offered health-related support to help them to find work. Therefore, I very much welcome the work first Scotland and work able Scotland programmes, which will assist about 5,000 people with disabilities and health conditions into employment in the interim year 2017-18. The fact that the Government is prioritising those groups that have been left behind by the current schemes is certainly encouraging.

I also hope that the contracting process for the interim and later programmes recognises the experience and skills of smaller third sector and non-profit providers. As Annie Wells pointed out, they often have the expertise to provide specialist support that is needed to help people who are furthest from the labour market. I look forward to their playing a much more central role in Scottish programmes than has been the case with the work programme.

With all relevant services under the control of this Parliament, Scotland has an enormously valuable opportunity to provide co-ordinated and innovative services that support into well-paying and long-lasting employment opportunities people who experience multiple barriers. As One Parent Families Scotland has argued, employment support for parents can be joined up with the newly expanded early years and childcare support, and we can tackle the gender gap by not forcing women into highly gender-segregated and low-paid sectors of our economy. As those of us who attended the Equate Scotland reception last week will know, women are desperately needed in science, technology, engineering and mathematics subjects.

The renewables revolution that we so badly need can be supported by employment schemes that train people to work in green industries. Those are the kinds of opportunities that an imaginative and radical set of employment programmes offers us, so I hope that the Scottish Government is willing to invest time, effort and funds in building such a model of employment support.

I will move on to sanctions. Although I accept that members all across the chamber feel very strongly about the negative impact of benefit sanctions, earlier this year I was proud to stand on the only party manifesto that pledged to use the new powers over employment services to reduce significantly the number of benefit sanctions that are applied in Scotland.

In August, the Scottish Greens launched Scotland against sanctions and the report “Sanction-free Scotland: The case for voluntary employability programmes”. It presents original research that shows that on average 13,000 sanctions a year are applied to the benefits of Scottish claimants. The report also lays out in detail how sanctions could be stopped, should the UK Government refuse to refer to Scottish programmes on a voluntary basis. I am heartened by recent correspondence, and I hope that the willingness to proceed on that basis will continue.

The evidence that the report presents is clear. First, sanctions do not achieve their intended purpose. Their positive impact in helping people into employment is marginal and transitory. Secondly, the positive effects are far outweighed by the way in which they can trap people in low-wage work and by the detrimental impact on welfare recipients’ health and wellbeing. If the purpose of sanctions is to help benefit recipients into work by enforcing their participation in employment programmes, they are even more unacceptable when those programmes do not provide a genuine chance for unemployed people to gain work.

Although it is welcome that the performance of the work programme has improved year on year, I suggest to Adam Tomkins that 65 per cent of participants still go through the whole two years of the programme without gaining work—the figure is much higher for people with health conditions and disabilities. The Westminster Government is telling people to take part in activity that is more likely not to help them, and to do so under the threat of having their income taken away from them. That is not at all acceptable, so I welcome the motion, which pledges that all Scottish employability programmes will be voluntary. The Scottish Government has said that it wants to build the programmes on the values of dignity, respect and fairness; making them sanction free is an important start.

The devolution of employment programmes is perhaps not the most high-profile power to be devolved by the Scotland Act 2016, but it is one of the most exciting. I am pleased that the Scottish Greens have played a part in the process by putting forward the idea of sanction-free programmes, and I look forward to continuing to work with the Government and colleagues from across the chamber on the issue.

16:04  

I am very proud that the Scottish Government is showing real vision, commitment and determination to link employability and employment better. Particular groups face different challenges and barriers—for example, disability—in seeking employment. However, I am concerned about the less-obvious groups and individuals who have been left behind by services that do not meet their needs or offer any encouragement to find a suitable job. We have just heard about that from Alison Johnstone.

Scotland can do more; we can do things differently and we can provide effective employment support for physically disabled people, people with special needs, people with additional support needs or mental health issues, young people who are leaving care, and people who have fallen through the care net, for example.

Westminster’s current muddled regime is at best chaotic, and at worst is completely failing. A few years ago, the work was given to two private companies—not to the third sector, where it should have gone. The regime will no longer be a brake that holds back Scotland’s productivity. We need systems that take a capability approach that recognises that while focusing on an individual’s personal employability journey, the individual’s wider needs must also be addressed.

We can congratulate ourselves when we talk about the unemployment rate of 5 per cent in Scotland, but the problem is that that group includes a disproportionate number of people who are furthest from the workplace—those who, because of disability or other barriers, need additional support. Threats, sanctions, enforced work schemes and the like do not represent the route to bringing people into work. Those people are often in need of help to build greater self-esteem, to get the confidence and support to learn new skills, and to get the skills and training that maximise their potential.

There are as many reasons for people not being in work as there are individuals. Each individual is unique, but there are things that the Government can do to improve life chances. Now is the time for us to ensure that we have the right structures and systems in place before we embrace the new powers. That is what we are doing today. Those systems need to be person centred, flexible and properly targeted. Young people who are leaving care can face challenges including childhood trauma, difficult family relationships and even having nowhere to live. If a person finds somewhere to live in supported accommodation and finds a part-time job or goes to college or university, their housing benefit is taken from them, so they lose their support system. We in the Scottish Parliament can fix that.

Young single mothers who struggle to manage alone often feel isolated and struggle financially. Many suffer from stress and anxiety, so they feel demoralised and out of control. That, in turn, leads to complete loss of motivation and any real will power.

The conditionality regime hits the most vulnerable people with vicious sanctions. Young single mothers must seek work to claim jobseekers allowance once their youngest child reaches five. The whole regime is based on punishment. If a person turns up five minutes late for a jobcentre interview because their child needed to go to the toilet, they can find themselves with no benefits and sanctioned for a fortnight. I have spoken in the chamber on many occasions about the catastrophic effect of sanctioning. I add to those sad observations that a young mum’s not being sanctioned does not mean that the conditionality regime will not bite. The fear of knowing that that might happen is destructive in itself and often leads to depression, stress and anxiety. It can also exacerbate existing health conditions. That is all totally destructive when trying to find a job and better quality of life.

On top of that, the conditionality regime forces many single parents into poor-quality, low-paid and temporary work. Social security rules actively prevent single parents from improving their job prospects through further education, training or volunteering.

That is not, of course, getting it right for every child. Conditionality seems to be designed to create fear, anxiety and stigma rather than any positive reinforcement and encouragement.

Action for Children has told us a real-life story about Alex. Alex is a lone parent who is bringing up three children. After a time claiming JSA, when she felt constantly in fear of being sanctioned, she was transferred to the work programme, where the fear continued. Her work programme provider told her that she was required to job search for 30 hours a week, although her claimant commitment agreement was for 20 hours; that she could be sanctioned if she did not consider working at weekends; that she could not take her children with her to meetings with her work programme provider, and would be sanctioned if she did not arrive; that her oldest child could look after the younger siblings; that she could organise childcare at a summer club for her children, even though no funds were available to pay for that; and that she should speak with Jobcentre Plus to query her activity requirements over the summer. JCP told her that she should speak with the work programme provider about that.

The work programme provider also continually pressured her to apply for jobs that did not fit in with the childcare that she could access. Her support worker commented:

“Work Programme demands and activities left her out of pocket, affecting her confidence, sense of self-worth and in turn had a negative impact on her children during their school holidays—where she as their sole carer was not in a position to hide as much as she may normally be able to from them.”

I am sorry, but that is not getting it right for every child or supporting people into work; that is absolute and utter punishment. If we want families to be productive, to be involved in their communities and to get into work that is sustainable, we need to change how we do things and to create a system in Scotland that is fairer and puts dignity and respect at its heart. Every minute of every year that I am in Parliament, and with my every breath, that is what I will fight for.

16:10  

Parliament will break new ground simply by taking over control of employment support services. Our beginning to take charge of the help that is provided to disabled people is unprecedented, and a social security bill being debated and passed by members here will be historic. “Ground-breaking, unprecedented and historic”—those words will be at the forefront of the message to the public about the changes in the coming months and years.

However, this is a time when politicians must tread carefully with our language, and when we should and must be humbled by the challenge that is ahead of us, because it will be outcomes that matter. We should start the debate by asking ourselves what kind of society we wish for our children and grandchildren, and what support is required to create it.

In this Parliament, a majority of members have campaigned and worked against cuts in mobility support, and politicians of all stripes have fought to build up the work chances of our disabled people. We have a drive that keeps us awake at night wondering how we can better help those who devote their lives to caring for our loved ones.

I am grateful to those who have got us to where we are today, and I think of the battles for recognition that have been waged and won, the prejudices that have been challenged and beaten back, the perceptions that have been changed in our communities and workplaces, and the expectations that have been raised, met and exceeded.

Rightly, expectation is building once again, in the light of the challenges that are still faced by disabled people today—challenges that are being fought against every day by campaigners who will be watching closely to see how we approach the new powers. That expectation is not just for those who will be directly affected by the powers that we will hold, but for the country as a whole. It is expectation not of a system that ties up disabled people in red tape and inflicts punitive sanctions on them, but of a system that preserves people’s independence and provides them with not only a safety net to allow them to survive but a springboard to enable them to play a full part in society. It is expectation of a system that moves us beyond the idea of social protection into a new dawn of social enhancement, of full social engagement, of participation in education, employment and volunteering and of people being able to care for their kids and simply enjoy and live their lives.

The sentiment behind the Government motion suggests that there is a consensus to be found with the Labour movement. That leaves options for the minister. He can look to those who have overseen the precipitous decline of Government help or to those who seek to raise the bar still further. He can look to those who have marginalised our most vulnerable people or to those who seek to uplift them. He can look to those who restrict support for people who face challenges or to those who seek to enhance it. I appreciate the Government’s support for our amendment, which shows the side to which the minister will look for support and collaboration.

We in the Labour movement have a long-standing belief that when barriers block the path of one, they block the path for us all, and that when one person is left behind, we cannot advance together. If the Government decides to bring about meaningful change and to build a system that enhances the lives of our disabled citizens, that ensures that people who find themselves out of work are treated with compassion, and which reflects the language of fairness and respect that is in today’s motion, the minister will have our support and that of the Labour movement.

The future of employment support in this country requires us to work together—not with our eyes clouded with political grievance but with our focus firmly fixed on the expectation of a nation. Going back to Pauline McNeill’s point, I am seeking not to cause artificial fights between Governments but to find meaningful solutions to the problem. At this point, I am happy to take the intervention that the minister might have been seeking to make on Pauline McNeill on this issue.

I am sorry, but you are in your last minute.

Perhaps in his summing up the minister will tell us about the progress that has been made between the Governments in discussions on sanctions.

There are times in this country when we go about our own business, enjoying the opportunities with which we have been blessed. Sometimes we campaign on a political basis, and sometimes we campaign together on issues that we hold close to our hearts. However, there are other times when we need to come together, inspired by the dignity of the individual—the people whose individual circumstances have been identified by many members this afternoon. There are days when we have to unite and help to build and shape a shared future to improve the lives of the many people whom members have talked about. Today is one of those days.

Thank you very much, Presiding Officer.

Thank you. My hand signals eventually had some effect.

16:17  

I very much welcome the opportunity to speak today. It is great to see the devolution of some of the benefits system, even if many of us would like more of it to be devolved.

I will focus on three main topics, the first of which is attitude—by which I mean the whole attitude of any employment service that we have and, following on from that, the treatment of applicants. Mark Griffin mentioned compassion, but we could use many other words. I accept that any system needs rules and regulations that have to be adhered to and that someone has to pass on unpopular decisions. I should stress that many individuals in the DWP are working hard and well and are doing a great job.

However, it is not acceptable for people who apply for a benefit to be treated like a piece of dirt. Too often, that is how many decent people feel. Any of us might need to apply for a benefit as a result of falling on hard times through, say, ill health or losing our job, in the same way as any of us might need a passport, dental treatment or some other public service. In all those cases, we should remember that we are talking about a public service.

Of course, all public services can be abused—some library users might be there to vandalise the books—but we assume that the vast majority of people are there for good reasons. Some patients might deliberately waste a doctor’s time, but again we have to assume that the majority really need medical help. In the same way, we can and should assume that the majority of those who look to claim benefits do so for genuine reasons. This is a public service and it is there to serve the public. I expect the same level of service, respect and helpfulness when using an employment service as I expect when I go into, say, Slaters to buy a suit.

That point ties in with the briefings from Barnardo’s, which talks about “a more individualised programme”, and from Action for Children, which emphasises the needs of disadvantaged young people and says that it wants employability support services

“which are young person focussed, flexible, and inclusive of different approaches.”

That is the point. We cannot have one size fits all any more than we can have one book that fits all in our library service.

My final point on attitude is that it need not cost any money. We should be able to provide the same services for the same cost, but in a better way.

On conditionality, I accept that some benefits may be subject to conditions, but I argue that every person in this land has a right to a certain basic income. Further down the line, I would like us to look at a citizens income or a universal basic income, which would be guaranteed to every citizen and would have no conditionality at all. However, I accept that that is more of a medium-term objective.

In the short term, we can still look at conditionality. There is a moral side to the argument. The worst people in our society are in prison, yet they are guaranteed food, shelter and warmth. Why are decent people who are disabled or who have lost their job not also guaranteed that minimum? When sanctions are imposed on disabled and unemployed people, they are treated worse than prisoners. If someone is to be fined in court, there are many safeguards before that happens, yet sanctions can be imposed on vulnerable people with very few safeguards in place. I accept that benefits above the minimum level can be made conditional, but I do not accept that benefits at the minimum level—the level at which they are meant to keep people alive—should be conditional.

I accept that there are particular challenges in helping some disabled people into work. Employers might be unwilling to adapt workplaces or workplace practices, or they might not be aware of the help that they can receive to do that.

At the Economy, Jobs and Fair Work Committee meeting yesterday, I was fascinated to hear that disabled people in south-east England have been more successful at finding employment than those in other parts of the UK. That seems to be because there are skills shortages in that area and employers have discovered that it is worth their while to make adaptations and to employ disabled people who have the skills that they need.

That proves that, if employers have the incentive and the support, they will employ disabled people. However, when there is no shortage of labour—as is perhaps the case in other parts of the UK outside the south-east—it can be hard for a disabled person to compete in the open marketplace.

I still think that there is a place for supported employment in some cases, but I accept that the main aim of our policies should be to integrate disabled people into mainstream workplaces. It was disappointing to lose many Remploy jobs and I welcome provision along the same lines in, for example, Glasgow and Falkirk.

I am grateful for the opportunity to speak today. Employability services have much to do with finance and the economy, but please let us not forget that they also have a lot to do with individual people and with our moral responsibility as a society.

16:22  

I will focus on employment support for individuals with disabilities and on the role that public procurement can play in securing employment for those who are disabled or disadvantaged.

First, I make it clear that work must always pay and that it must always be more rewarding to be in work than to be on benefits. Employability programmes are important, but it is just as important that Scotland is creating jobs, that the economy is expanding and that Scotland is open for business. Sadly, the SNP Government has let Scotland down on those fronts, as the economy is stalling and output is flatlining.

In employment support, the Scottish Government should be doing everything that it can to ensure that people are supported to prepare for, find, secure and retain employment. I commend Scotland’s range of supported businesses for providing employment to individuals with disabilities, and I recognise that it is right to provide transitional funding to organisations over the next year through the proposed work first Scotland programme.

However, ageing workforces, low numbers of younger employees and a lack of onward progression to the open job market are key challenges in supported businesses. The Scottish Government should explore what it can do to aid supported businesses to reshape their businesses in order to give disabled workers every opportunity to move into open employment. Supported businesses that provide onward employment outcomes should be incentivised for doing so under Scotland’s specialist employability programmes after March 2018.

Disabled individuals who are employed by a supported business should be given the training, support and encouragement that will enable them to move into the wider job market. Supported businesses should, in the first instance, be seen as providing a route to conventional work and not as a long-term destination in their own right. Of course, I recognise that, for some, prolonged employment in a supported business may be the best long-term solution.

Successfully balancing the commercial and social aims of supported businesses is undoubtedly a significant challenge, and the Scottish supported businesses sector is under considerable strain. The rate at which supported businesses are disappearing across Scotland is worrying, as we risk losing those valuable assets.

The Scottish Government and the wider public sector must do all that they can to lessen the financial pressures that are being placed on supported businesses, to ensure their long-term viability. One of the most effective ways in which to do that is to increase the opportunities for them to succeed in public sector procurement.

I commend the Scottish Government for the national collaborative framework agreement for supported factories and businesses, but the framework’s scope is too narrow and does not cover the range of goods and services that can be delivered by Scotland’s supported businesses. Further, public bodies are falling short on their commitment to use reserved contracts for supported businesses, as outlined in their sustainable procurement action plans.

New opportunities exist for the public sector to do more, because recent amendments to European Union procurement legislation have significantly broadened the scope to use reserved contracts for supported businesses. Critically, the profile of an organisation to which a public body can award a reserved contract has been changed, as the percentage of the workforce who must be disabled has been lowered from 50 per cent to 30 per cent.

In addition, the scope has been broadened to include

“economic operators whose main aim is the social and professional integration of disabled or disadvantaged persons”.

The inclusion of the terms “economic operators” and “disadvantaged persons” is crucial because, suddenly, in comparison with the handful of organisations that fulfilled the old criteria, hundreds of social enterprises and third sector organisations that provide employment support to those with disabilities and/or those who are disadvantaged in the employment market can be brought into the fold. The Scottish public sector now has the legal framework that can, if the sector chooses to do it, revolutionise contracts for goods and services from supported businesses, social enterprises and the wider third sector. Ultimately, that spend can drive wider positive social impacts through procurement and support the employment of those who are most disadvantaged in the job market.

Supported businesses must increasingly act as a transition mechanism to enable disabled employees to get into the open job market, and public procurement must drive that support for the benefit of those who are disabled and disadvantaged.

I have finished with three seconds to spare, Presiding Officer.

Yes—I can see the clock as well. Thank you, Mr Golden.

16:28  

It is great to speak in this extremely important debate about how we assist the most vulnerable in our society and how we get people into work and keep them there. I want to cover four main areas, which are the ethos by which we approach using the new employability powers; the context that we are in; the Scottish Government’s proposals; and how we deliver them.

The ethos relates to what John Mason said about attitude. We are debating employability services, but we are also considering how we motivate people into work. Do we use the carrot or the stick? Which is more meaningful and effective: encouragement or threats; a lift up or the fear of a put-down through sanctions and conditionality? Many other speakers have said this, but it is also my personal experience in different sectors from hospitality to engineering and from the commercial world to working briefly in the public sectors that, in all those roles and in wider society, a person who is appreciated, respected and invested in will always do more than is expected. Encouragement, empathy, belief and generosity will always help those who are in need in a more meaningful and effective way. In essence, it is better to provide support than to get to a position where we need to pick people up off the floor.

That is the context in which we should approach the use of the new powers that we are discussing today and the social security powers that are coming to the Parliament. That approach should apply as we design and implement governmental systems; we should support other people with encouragement, respect and dignity.

With that ethos and attitude, we need to approach the new powers with a sense of context, considering where we have been, where we are today and where we want to go. In terms of where we have been, we have seen a process of deindustrialisation, financial crisis and austerity together with intergenerational poverty, low morale and low self-belief in many of our communities. Everything that we in the Parliament do with the new powers should be about getting past that and doing what we can with the limited powers at our disposal to tackle the hugely difficult and challenging issues.

The issues in the present context that I will mention are ones that my constituents have raised, but they matter to the whole of Scotland. Low pay has been endemic in far too many communities and parts of our country. I raised earlier the problem of zero-hours contracts, which are creating difficult circumstances for many people who are trying to get into meaningful work and get beyond the challenging circumstances that they are in.

There are also problems with the UK Government’s current approach to sanctions, which was spoken about most powerfully by Sandra White. Not only is the sanctions regime punitive and wrong headed, in my view and the view of many, it does not work. Citizens Advice Scotland has said that 90 per cent of its front-line staff feel that the use of sanctions and conditionality does not work in any meaningful way. It is also important to consider that there has been an 87 per cent cut to the budget for delivering these programmes. That is the situation that the Scottish Government is in.

What we want to create in future is a system around employability in which we support more of our people and realise their potential for the benefit of us all. That is why I warmly welcome the Scottish Government’s approach, which is to use the powers that are coming to the Parliament to focus on disabled people and people who are at risk of long-term unemployment in a way that is designed to help people to get into long-term, stable jobs.

I particularly welcome the minister’s point that these will be voluntary schemes that bring people together in the system—within the devolved areas—aligning them with other aspects of the public sector and ensuring that the programmes are seen as an opportunity for people and not as a threat. I also welcome the £20 million of Scottish Government support, particularly in the light of the cut that I mentioned.

In that context of the Scottish Government’s proposals, the cuts and conditionality that are being implemented by Westminster and the sanctions that will remain under Westminster control, I warmly welcome the fact that the minister has corresponded with the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions and the confirmation that the DWP will not require on a mandatory basis that Jobcentre Plus clients take part in any Scottish Government programme in order to continue to receive support.

Briefly, because I know that I am in my last minute—

You are in your last 30 seconds.

I emphasise Alison Johnstone’s point that we can use the third sector to help to deliver some of the programmes in future and get away from everything coming through Jobcentre Plus. There are many organisations in my constituency that have some expertise in the area, including Cyrenians, Fresh Start, North Edinburgh Childcare, Citadel Youth Centre and Granton Youth Centre. Anything that we can do to help in the delivery mechanism will make a meaningful difference.

I look forward to the positive change that lies ahead in this area, despite the challenges of an 87 per cent cut by Westminster, and I look forward to playing a part in the implementation and delivery.

16:35  

I welcome the debate today and it is clear from the discussion so far and from the level of interest in the subject that, in Scotland, we have the opportunity to get this right for every person who needs to access such services.

I want first to look at the importance of skills. The SCVO brief highlights a number of interesting statistics, one of which is that, despite the high levels of investment, there remains a skills mismatch in Scotland and 69 per cent of businesses in Scotland are not confident about filling high-skilled jobs in the future. Indeed, in most areas in Scotland, there are major skills shortages in the building trade, the care sector, manufacturing and many other sectors. Therefore we should be clear from the outset and make sure that the employment support programmes that we develop in Scotland are meaningful and that they will equip people for the world of work.

I speak as someone who started their working life on a youth training scheme programme. Employment programmes must be about more than meeting targets to get people off benefits. Their main objective must be to provide the support, guidance, signposting, direction and training opportunities that will result in good, paid, and sustainable employment. If we are to achieve that, I suggest that we need joined-up strategies that are based on local intelligence of the support and skills needs locally and the availability of employment in the local area and region. Services must be designed to meet people’s needs rather than people being expected to fit into some kind of Government programme.

The example from the SCVO of its work in Glasgow, where there was a requirement and demand for support with numeracy and literacy, is a good one and one that I suspect we would find in all parts of Scotland. As the SCVO puts it,

“without basic education, young people are unable to participate in further education, training or employment.”

That is of course also the case with adults. To simply put people on to employment programmes without addressing their basic support needs is to tick a box, get people off benefits for a short period of time and do very little to help them improve their prospects in the longer term. Any system or programme that is to work for the individual must have a comprehensive and personalised initial assessment—a kind of individual work plan—that sets out what that person’s support needs are and the progress that is being made to meet those individual needs. A person-centred work programme is what we need to strive for as we develop these new programmes in Scotland.

I also suggest that we must devolve much of the responsibility for the development and management of employment programmes to a regional level. The report from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation that was published just a few weeks ago—“We Can Solve Poverty in the UK”—makes the point that

“Devolution is one of the defining political agendas of our time. Poverty will not be solved from Whitehall or by central government alone – but by the policy-makers closer to those people experiencing it.”

I say today that we must move beyond Holyrood and take the new powers and budgets much further down to achieve the best results for the people of Scotland.

The Rowntree report also states:

“Local authorities can also play a leadership role, developing an economic vision tailored for their area and bringing together local partners to deliver it.”

We must build partnership at a more local level and bring together business, employers and trade unions, set regional skills and jobs strategies and put in place whatever provision is required to deliver a person-centred approach to getting unemployed people into good sustainable employment.

Although I have been a vocal supporter of community planning, I do not think that the objectives have been achieved in most areas. It has become a bit of a tick-box exercise for professionals in public sector organisations, and there has been a failure to properly engage with key stakeholders from the third sector, employers and trade unions. Therefore, a rethink on community planning is necessary, but the principle of planning and delivering skills, training and jobs at a regional and local level is, in my view, a must. We should be willing to use the new powers and services, we should talk to our partners across the third sector and local government, and we should take a local and a regional approach. Most important of all, we should take a personal approach to the individuals concerned.

16:40  

I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in this important debate on the devolution of employment services. It is deeply regrettable that the UK Government has imposed reductions of almost 90 per cent in funding for those important services, but I welcome the minister’s commitment to provide additional resources to ensure that services continue to be provided to the most vulnerable in Scottish society, including people who are furthest away from the job market and disabled people.

I would like to focus on the Scottish Government’s commitment that the devolved employment services will be voluntary services and why that is so important. We need services that support people into work rather than the mandatory participation and the threat of benefit sanctions that are currently used by the UK Government, which, frankly, do nothing to increase someone’s chances of accessing good-quality, well-paid employment and simply pour human misery on human misery.

Most members will have experience of hearing at first hand how conditionality and sanctions impact on the lives of their constituents. Only this week, I heard from Jonathan, a young man who lives in my constituency. He told me that he feels let down by the way in which he is being treated, and he gave me permission to mention him in the debate. Jonathan told me that the latest sanction that has been imposed on him, which was imposed two months after an alleged infraction, has resulted in £74 being taken off his universal credit when he is already struggling. He told me that that made him feel worthless. That young man suffers from depression and anxiety. It is not necessary to be a mental health professional to understand that taking an aggressive and punitive approach will worsen mental health conditions and make it harder rather than easier for people to return to work.

We have heard many times that sanctions often affect the most vulnerable in our society: lone parents, disabled people and the young. Sanctions leave people unable to pay their bills, their rent or their debt repayments and put tenancies at risk, which results in a threat of homelessness. In her speech, Christina McKelvie made the important point that it is not just the sanction and the loss of income that cause harm; the fear of sanctions causes stress, anxiety and depression. One Parent Families Scotland agrees. It also points out that there is a danger that the conditionality regime and the fear of sanctions force parents into low-paid and temporary work that is not in the best interests of them or their children. Our goal must be to support people into decently paid, quality work and not to frighten them into unsuitable employment.

As Pauline McNeill and Ben Macpherson said, the worst of it is that all that harm, hurt and stress do not help at all. More people are sanctioned because of the work programme than obtain jobs from it. In Scotland, 46,265 sanctions were applied between June 2011 and March 2014. During the same period, 26,740 job outcomes resulted from the work programme.

I am a member of the Social Security Committee, and in evidence sessions with key stakeholders the negative impact of sanctions featured highly in our discussion of which priorities should inform our work programme and our consideration of how the Scottish Parliament should approach the new welfare powers that are being devolved here.

At our 8 September meeting, all the following respected witnesses highlighted sanctions as having a particular detriment on the vulnerable groups that they work with: John Dickie from the Child Poverty Action Group in Scotland; Rob Gowans from Citizens Advice Scotland; Alys Mumford from Engender; and Kayleigh Thorpe from Enable Scotland. They all work for trusted and respected organisations, and they are clear about what helps and harms the people with whom they work.

A number of bodies and studies have also drawn attention to sanctions and benefits delays being the most common cause of someone needing to access emergency food aid. For example, “Emergency use only: understanding and reducing the use of food banks in the UK”, which is a report that was published jointly by the Child Poverty Action Group, the Church of England, Oxfam GB and the Trussell Trust in November 2014, says that sanctions featured as a main reason why people used the food bank, and that

“around 20-30% of food bank users had had their benefit reduced due to a sanction.”

It is frankly astounding that the UK Government has continually failed to recognise the damage that conditionality and sanctions have on people and their dependants and the harm that that inflicts on their ability to participate in society.

Despite the drastic scale of funding reductions being imposed by the UK Government, I am reassured by the minister’s statement that our Scottish Government’s employment services will treat people with dignity and respect, putting the needs of individuals at the centre of services and never forgetting their purpose to help people reach their full potential and to secure good quality, well-paid employment.

16:46  

Thank you, Presiding Officer, for finding the time this afternoon to allow me to make a contribution to this important debate.

I do not know whether William Beveridge, the architect of the welfare state, had as many people in the room watching him create that welfare state. I have counted a couple of dozen people in the public gallery, but that does not reflect the significance of this day. The gallery should be packed, because we are creating a new Scottish welfare state. The debate deserves that kind of attention.

I am grateful for the minister’s contributions this afternoon, but we should be thinking big about what the potential opportunities are for the new welfare state. The foundations that we are setting today are probably broadly the right ones, and we support it being established with the principles of respect, dignity and fairness.

We will support the SNP motion and the Labour amendment; unfortunately, we will not be able to support the Conservative amendment. However, the spirit of the debate shows the seriousness with which we all address the topic.

We are here this afternoon because the Smith commission went further than was originally intended. We did not intend to devolve as much of the welfare state as we eventually did. There may be some quibbles about what eventually came from the commission but—as the Conservatives and other members will know—it went much further than was originally intended, and it included the devolution of the employability schemes.

That might be the case, but I am sure that Mr Rennie would agree that the Devolution (Further Powers) Committee in the previous parliamentary session said that the legislation that came through the UK Parliament did not go as far as Smith had recommended.

I am sure that an SNP-dominated committee would say that. We should not quibble on this issue; rather, we should seek the opportunity to work in a partnership. I know that the minister bemoans the fact that Jobcentre Plus has not been devolved. However, Mr Swinney and Michael Moore, my former colleague at Westminster, were very good at working in partnership to bring together the two Governments to make a better whole. A partnership like that should not be precluded in this arrangement, too.

Today we have developed the beginnings of a cross-party effort, like the one that William Beveridge achieved all those years ago, to create a new Scottish welfare system. Creating the system is incredibly important; it is also incredibly important that we do that together.

As has been said, work is the best route out of poverty. We need to make sure that everybody understands that, although we have views about sanctions and the scheme’s voluntary nature, they have a responsibility to work and to contribute towards the wellbeing of society. We have an ageing population, and there are still large numbers of people who are not contributing to the country’s economic wellbeing. We should be encouraging and incentivising those people to work, if they possibly can. The system should be devised to do that in order for us to create that sustainable economy for the future.

All of this should be founded not just upon the employability schemes. Our education system is failing just now. We do not have an education system that is training people for the world of work. We need to invest more, all the way back to nursery education, to give young children the opportunities throughout their school life and through to college and university to contribute towards the world of work. That should be the incentive. We should not just be looking narrowly at the employability schemes, but at the whole education system, too.

Earlier, I heard an SNP member parading his views about the proper living wage. However, just yesterday we heard about Amazon in Dunfermline, which is recruiting quite a lot of new people—but all of them at below the proper living wage. That company received millions of pounds in grants from the Scottish Government. There should have been a compulsion on Amazon to pay the proper living wage if it was to receive Government grants. Let us practise what we preach—that is important in this context.

The devolution of the employability schemes gives us the opportunity to bring the different stakeholders to work together, with Skills Development Scotland playing an important role. That will give us the opportunity to drive efficiencies through the system and learn from best practice here in Scotland.

I agree with Alison Johnstone, who is not in the chamber just now, about the third sector contribution. I have met many charities and third sector organisations and they could make a big contribution because they understand their clients and the people who seek their support exceptionally well. I hope that they are brought into the system so that full use can be made of that knowledge.

In my last 30 seconds, I turn to the issue of sanctions. I agree that the system should be voluntary. I agree that we should be incentivising and encouraging people to take up the opportunity of the employability schemes. I agree that the overbearing, overused and counterproductive sanctions regime is not appropriate for the employability schemes. That should be at the centre of the approach and that is why I am happy to support the motion.

16:52  

I am pleased to contribute to the debate, especially as it is on an area in which the UK Government has yet again honoured the promises that it made.

The agreement to devolve powers over employment services means that this chamber will become responsible for key areas such as the existing work programme and work choice. Soon, the Scottish Government will have the power and, with that power, the responsibility; it will be time to stop always blaming someone else.

Scotland needs a can-do Government, not a can’t-do Government. Now the Scottish Government needs to tell us how it will incentivise work and how, without sanctions, it will limit abuses of the system. How will any additional costs be met and how, for all those who are seeking a route to employment, will any new system be better?

Will Ms Harris give way?

I am sorry—I have too much to do.

I hope that the Scottish Government will take a balanced view in determining how it uses those new powers. It should not say that the schemes that are devolved are bad simply because they were designed at Westminster. Those schemes have been of great help to many tens of thousands of Scots and provide programmes that are a good foundation on which to build.

Will the member give way?

I am sorry—no.

After all, the terms of reference for the advisory group that was set up to listen to the views of stakeholders say:

“The Scottish Government intend to deliver employability support in Scotland that builds on excellence and experience in existing service delivery”.

I have no doubt that the Scottish Government will introduce changes. After all, surely this will not be yet another example of the Scottish Government gaining powers only to fail to use them. However, I hope that the Government will bear in mind the continued need to incentivise work—not only to provide a range of services that deliver support to those seeking employment and training, but to pursue business-friendly policies that will encourage the enterprise that provides those jobs and, very importantly, policies that help to retain jobs and keep people in employment.

SNP policies have led to the level of job creation in Scotland being the lowest of any of the nations of the UK and that must change. Scotland’s record on creating jobs is behind regions in England such as the north-east and Merseyside. Those areas have gained by providing a more stable and much more settled destination for businesses, as they do not suffer from having a Government that is more interested in reheating constitutional arguments than in providing the right environment for growth and job creation.

Making Scotland the highest-taxed part of the UK is not the way to provide the right environment. SNP policies such as doubling the large business rates supplement, which will add more than £64 million a year to the costs of Scottish businesses; replacing stamp duty; and forcing through an increase in the council tax that will be paid by people in bands E and F—just the sort of people who aspire to save so that they can set up small businesses and provide employment—are costing employment and stifling the growth that offers people the best routes into employment.

Getting people into work and breaking the cycle of not working is the best and most sustainable way of tackling poverty. It is better than any scheme or programme. We have heard this quote many times today, but it is worth repeating. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation puts it this way:

“For those who can, work represents the best route out of poverty”.

If we assume that the SNP is not going to abandon the policies that deter enterprise and business, there are other things that it should be doing. For example, it should ensure that disabled people who would currently benefit from the opportunities that are offered by the work choice programme continue to get as good a service under any successor programme, building on the great work that is being done by Scotland’s local councils in delivering support for employment. The local knowledge and experience that the Government has gained through its involvement with such bodies as community planning partnerships must be fully utilised.

When we talk about a tailored localised approach, we should mean that local authorities must work closely with other local partners to identify people who need help from various agencies; to bring together services to meet their needs so that they can get back into work; and to enable them to overcome problems including learning difficulties, health and housing issues.

I realise that the Scottish Government has embarked on a consultation exercise, but it needs to be a real listening exercise. The views of users, partners, contractors and voluntary bodies must be considered, and there should be no instant dismissal of the views of people who highlight the good points of the existing programmes. Organisations such as Capability Scotland, Enable Scotland and the Shaw Trust have much experience, which needs to continue to be put to good use.

I said earlier that the Government needs to start taking responsibility. I am pleased that the Conservative amendment recognises the importance of employment programmes and seeks to remove the usual carping from the SNP motion. It is an amendment that I shall have much pleasure in supporting this afternoon.

16:57  

I begin by putting on record that the First Minister has appointed me as a parliamentary liaison officer for the economy, jobs and fair work portfolio. I look forward to working with colleagues across the chamber in that capacity.

I congratulate the minister on the work that he has undertaken to begin to build a distinctive Scottish approach to employment services. It is regrettable that the Scottish Government does not have access to all the powers and economic levers that we need to grow our economy and create all the jobs that we need in Scotland, and we will continue to make the case for full devolution of job-creating powers. However, the devolution of employment services can still make a huge difference to the lives of people in Scotland and is therefore to be warmly welcomed.

We have the opportunity to build an employability support system that works for everybody in Scotland, and which has the potential to provide meaningful long-term change. I am proud to support a Scottish Government that rejects Westminster’s system of sanctions and punitive measures and instead seeks to create a fairer, more just system with Scotland’s people and prosperity at its heart. A skilled workforce brings economic, social and cultural benefits, and the measures that the minister announced are a significant step in the right direction.

The programme of measures that the Scottish Government has announced is transitional and focuses on supporting disabled people and those at risk of long-term unemployment. Those measures have started the Scottish employment services programme off in the right direction, and they are to be welcomed.

There is more work to be done prior to the launch of a full range of employment services in 2018 and beyond. The minister has encouraged input from stakeholders and others that those services are designed to support in order to ensure that we deliver the most effective services for those who are seeking work.

However, our ambitions must be achieved within the constraints of budget cuts from Westminster, the scale of which is significant, as there has been a reduction of almost 90 per cent on current DWP spend. Although the Scottish Government will invest an additional £20 million a year in Scotland’s employability services, the impact of the Westminster cuts creates a challenging environment for the roll-out of the new programmes. Therefore, although the devolution of the powers is certainly welcome, the manner in which it has been done is far from satisfactory.

Let us be clear that the Scottish Government rejects the sanctions regime that is imposed by the UK Government whereby people can have benefits stopped for not taking up places. The evidence shows how damaging the DWP’s conditionality regime has been. It disproportionately affects vulnerable people, disabled people, young people and lone parents. Sanctions have increased in length and severity under the current UK Government. They can last anywhere from a few days to as long as three years. Hardship funds are not available until 15 days into the sanction period, which leaves no safety net for vulnerable people. When more people are sanctioned because of the work programme than obtain work from it, it is clearly not fit for purpose.

The culture of sanctioning is damaging. It often adversely affects the health and wellbeing of individuals and their children and reduces rather than enhances their suitability for work. Furthermore, the threat of being sanctioned is a stigma that feeds into the myth of deserving and undeserving poor. The Scottish Government knows that there is no such distinction and that everyone deserves dignity and respect.

In contrast, the Scottish Government’s employability programme will have equality and fairness at its heart. We will seek to encourage those who are furthest from the labour market to achieve social justice and economic outcomes that break the cycle of poverty and unemployment. We will treat people with dignity and respect at every stage of their journey into work, and we will focus on developing their skills to fulfil their employment potential.

However, it is important to note that, although the Scottish Parliament will take over responsibility for employability programmes and that some responsibility for social security related to disability is to be devolved, the UK Government remains entirely responsible for decisions over an individual’s entitlement to working-age benefits such as jobseekers allowance and employment and support allowance. Unfortunately, that includes all decisions over claimant conditions and sanctions.

I welcome the steps that the minister has taken to call on the UK Secretary of State for Work and Pensions to seek confirmation that the Department for Work and Pensions will not force Jobcentre Plus clients to take part in our new employment programme as a condition of receiving continuing support.

I made the same points as Ivan McKee has made about the vulnerability of people who use the employment service. Does he agree that it is important to highlight that there are professional people who find themselves unemployed in today’s world and that they also need that service to enhance their skills?

Yes, I agree. I think that the member is making the point that the initial programmes are focused on a limited number of people. As I mentioned earlier, those are transitional steps and the minister will bring forward proposals to roll out the programmes more widely as we move beyond the initial transitional stage.

We fundamentally believe that the programmes will work better if they are voluntary. That will bring people with us and ensure that the services are designed round them. It will ensure that the programmes are seen as an opportunity and not a threat. Evidently, if the whole system was entirely in the Scottish Parliament’s hands, that would be better, but we will work with what we have.

We will consider the societal and social barriers that are faced by people returning to work, particularly people with disabilities or long-term health conditions. Crucially, we will reject the DWP’s approach, which incentivises underemployment and low-paid work. Instead, we will encourage fairer pay, fairer work and fairer opportunities for all. We believe that that is right for Scotland and is consistent with our values and aspiration for a person-centred and enabling service for those whom we look to support—a system that is fair to people. The people of Scotland should know that their Government will use those powers to ensure that the principles of support, enablement and fairness are the hallmark of our employability programme.

We move to closing speeches.

17:03  

I will start by recapping the scale of the problem that we face. A few members have spoken about context: the context is that, although it is true that last month there were 80,000 men and women in Scotland on the claimant count, or claiming jobseekers allowance, in fact 130,000 working-age men and women were officially unemployed, and on top of that, in the annual population survey by the Office for National Statistics, more than 180,000 people of working age were described as being currently economically inactive but wanting to work. That is 310,000 people of working age seeking work today—not 5 per cent, but nearly 12 per cent of the workforce. Those levels of involuntary mass unemployment and worklessness represent not just a failure of our economy but a failure of our society.

There are human faces behind those stark statistics. Over the summer, I met the Airdrie ACE—advisory committee of Enable—group, which is a group of adults in Lanarkshire who have learning disabilities. Enable had brought them together to empower them and give them a voice, and when I met them in August I promised them that I would bring their concerns to Parliament and push their case up the Scottish Government’s agenda. They are simply demanding equality, and they are right to do so. Most of them are seeking work. None of them is in work, although one has started college and one works as an unpaid volunteer in a workplace where, to be frank, he could be in paid employment. Joblessness among adults who have learning disabilities stands at more than 92 per cent, yet the vast majority of them, including the young people in Airdrie, want to work.

The picture for people with mental health issues is similar, which is why we welcome the introduction of the work able Scotland strand in the Scottish Government’s programme. Resources of £4.8 million are being allocated to deliver the target of 1,500 starts, but if we are to do this properly, as I believe we must, and if we are to support individuals to the extent that we need to support them, the minister needs either to increase the funding or to set a more realistic target.

Will Richard Leonard accept that the UK Government has cut funding for delivery of the programmes by 87 per cent, which is £7 million for the coming financial year, and that we have leveraged in an additional £20 million?

I accept that. Reflecting on that cut, I ask Adam Tomkins why, if the job programme is so successful, are the Tories slashing it by such a big amount of money?

In the limited time that I have left, I want to touch on something that Maurice Golden and John Mason spoke about. Recently, I asked a parliamentary question about the Government’s framework for supported factories and businesses. I discovered that since 2012, only £1.9 million-worth of orders have been placed with supported businesses by public bodies in Scotland, with an average value per order of less than £5,000. I say to all those public bodies that that is not good enough, and I say to the minister that the Scottish Government should redouble its efforts.

Having listened to the debate, I think that when we come to design the work programme here, we need to decide what we aim to achieve. Annie Wells asked us to build on the existing work programme. I say to her that when the Tory-Liberal coalition introduced the work programme—for it was that coalition that brought it in—it said that it was

“a major new payment-for-results welfare-to-work programme”

and that it was

“central to the Coalition Government’s ambitious programme of welfare reforms.”

There we have it: a programme that is unashamedly not about growing work and tackling mass unemployment but is about cutting welfare payments. At its launch, the Tory coalition said that the programme was a flagship

“at the leading edge of wider government commissioning of payment-for-results public services.”

I say to the minister that we do not want “payment-for-results public services”; we want publicly run public services. We are not hiring taxis; we are providing employment support to working people. We know that in Scotland the two prime providers of the work programme are Working Links and Ingeus—two large multinational corporations whose first fiduciary duty is to make money for their owners. We would like the minister to explore continuously whether there are alternatives to that form of provision.

I want to ask a couple of things. Do we want action only on the supply side of the labour market, or should we look more at action on the demand side? Do we need investment in reindustrialisation and public services, rather than four more years of austerity? We need a radical but achievable economic strategy, so that we can expand the real economy and generate jobs. We need the readoption of full employment as a major policy objective so that, in the words of William Beveridge, who was referred to by Willie Rennie,

“Jobs, rather than men,”—

I would add women—

“should wait.”

As Mark Griffin said, with the devolution of employment support we have an historic opportunity, because the challenges that we face are not new; they are the problems that earlier generations faced up to and overcame. Let us not just demonstrate our concern this afternoon: let us prove our willingness to act, and let us leave no one in any doubt about the scale of our ambition for change and our determination to rebuild a full employment economy for all, for this generation.

I call on Parliament to support the Government motion with the Labour amendment.

17:10  

The devolution of employment support services marks yet another significant transfer of power to this Parliament. With these new powers comes significant responsibility for the Scottish Government, because it will be assuming power in areas of policy where there has been meaningful success in recent years.

Policies including the work programme have helped almost 50,000 unemployed people in Scotland into the job market. More importantly, they have helped many families to break the desperate cycle of multigenerational welfare dependency. Long-term unemployment rates are now at the lowest levels since Labour’s great recession, there are more disabled people in work and overall 2.7 million new jobs have been created since 2010. Most important, perhaps, is that half a million fewer children now live in workless households, which will greatly enhance their life chances.

I will address something that Richard Leonard said. The success of the UK Government’s economic strategy in creating 2.7 million new jobs and reducing long-term structural unemployment means that there is less need for funding for the work programme, because it has been a success.

All that is very positive, but there is more to be done—there is more to be done to help those who need additional support to access the job market, and to expand the job market and the economy in Scotland. To address those issues, the Scottish Government will have control over a range of existing employability powers and benefits, and the power to introduce new support services such as work first Scotland and work able Scotland.

Jamie Hepburn provided an outline of the Government’s plans, but it was more about the direction of travel than about details of how the new policies will be implemented and funded. Based on today’s debate, there is clearly no shortage of advice about how it might work. I would like to pick up on some of the issues that have been raised across the chamber this afternoon.

First, a number of members discussed the principles that should underpin employment support in the future. There are obviously a number of viewpoints on the issue. The view on the Conservative side of the chamber is that we should follow the principles that underpin the success of the work programme and work choice. Most important, and something that was mentioned by a few members, is that we should follow the advice that has been provided by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation:

“For those who can, work represents the best route out of poverty”.

We should also remember the analysis that shows that

“Additional spending on benefits without addressing the”

underlying root cause of poverty

“has failed to reduce poverty.”

The overall approach that we favour recognises the importance of using policy as the means of encouraging people into work—if necessary, with additional financial or other in-work support. That has to be better than policies that discourage or put barriers in the way of the transition into work. It should always pay to be in employment.

In order to be fully eligible for JSA or equivalent benefits, the claimant has to take some action to show that they are willing and able to work. For someone who is claiming job seekers allowance, it makes sense that they must take steps to find a job and be available to do that. According to the DWP, more than 70 per cent of claimants say that they are more likely to follow the rules if they risk having their benefits stopped—a view that is supported by the recent independent Oakley review.

Will Dean Lockhart give way?

I will give way in a moment.

To put it into context, the UK has a far less strict benefit sanctions regime than other European countries including Ireland and Sweden, and it is less strict than the European Union average.

Other members have made valuable contributions in respect of the increasing opportunities for disabled people to participate fully in the workplace under the work choice programme, which is entirely voluntary. Over the past two years, 365,000 more disabled people have moved into work, and our target is to halve the disability employment gap by 2020. As Adam Tomkins said, we look forward to hearing whether the Scottish Government is able or willing to match that commitment.

No one is saying that there should never be sanctions, and no one is denying that being in work is important. However, are the Conservatives going to address—at any stage in the debate—the draconian nature of some sanctions? I ask Dean Lockhart directly to consider the case that I mentioned, which is not uncommon. Is it fair that a person should have their benefits removed for six weeks?

I cannot comment on individual cases, but sanctions affect only a small number of claimants. Fewer than 2.5 per cent of JSA claimants and only 0.26 per cent of ESA claimants are sanctioned. Perspective is important. [Interruption.] I have answered the question.

Another topic that has been mentioned during the debate—indeed, it was raised by a number of third sector contributors ahead of the debate—is the need for greater integration and co-operation between employment support and other policy areas. Some good examples have come out of the debate. The cutting of 152,000 college places has created a skills gap at a time when the economy needs new and developing skills across all sectors.

Will Dean Lockhart give way?

I will not, right now. Maybe later.

After 10 years of an SNP Government, it is simply not good enough that unemployment is at 5 per cent at the same time as there is a significant skills gap.

Other members have rightly highlighted the fact that we need to improve the employment chances of children from the poorest backgrounds. In this chamber, we have discussed the attainment gap, but less attention has been given to the digital gap that is emerging in our schools. Figures that were published in August by ScotlandIS show that the number of computer teachers in Scotland has dropped by 25 per cent in the past decade and that 17 local authorities have no dedicated computer teachers available. With research by the Tinder Foundation—which Pauline McNeill mentioned—showing that 90 per cent of all new jobs require digital skills, we are simply not equipping our children with the skills that will be necessary for employment in the future.

The Scottish Government should also focus on the apprenticeship levy and use it to address the number of young people in deprived areas who are not in education, employment or training. Annie Wells mentioned the dismal figure of over 400,000 young people between the ages of 16 and 24 who are not in education, employment or training. Again, after 10 years of an SNP Government, that is simply not good enough.

Another issue that was raised is inclusive growth.

Will Dean Lockhart take an intervention?

No—I am wrapping up.

To be fair to Jamie Hepburn, the SNP motion refers to a more “prosperous Scotland” and “inclusive” growth. However, in order for economic growth to be inclusive, there must be economic growth in the first place. The Scottish economy recorded zero growth in the first quarter of this year, and the publication of gross domestic product numbers for the second quarter, which ended on 30 June, has mysteriously been delayed until next week—coincidentally during the parliamentary recess. Is that another example of the SNP trying to bury bad news during the recess?

It is becoming clear, as the Fraser of Allander institute has pointed out, that the Scottish economy must improve its performance, because more public spending will be determined by the performance of the Scottish economy. That is why our amendment highlights the need for the Government to take action and use its expanding powers to grow the employment market in Scotland and reverse the decline in the Scottish economy.

I ask the minister to wind up. Minister, you have until 17:29.

17:19  

That is very precise timing, Presiding Officer. I shall do my very best.

I thank members for their speeches today. I will not be able to pick up on every point that has been raised in the debate, but I will try to respond to as many as I can.

Mr Lockhart was right to identify—I think that I said this, too, at the start of the debate—that the debate is an opportunity for members to offer their perspectives on how we take the powers forward. The debate has been largely useful in that regard. It has been wide ranging, and a number of suggestions have been made. We will look at them all in detail as we develop services.

It was very instructive and informative that Mr Lockhart criticised the Scottish Government for a delay in the publication of GDP figures. We source those figures from the Office for National Statistics, of course, and have no control over the timing. If Mr Lockhart takes such an interest in the matter, I urge him to reflect on that and perhaps take up the issue with others who could be more forthcoming with the information.

One option, of course, is to push back the publication of the numbers so that they can be subject to full scrutiny and debate when Parliament comes back after the recess.

I go back to my point that we are not in control of the publication of those figures. Perhaps Mr Lockhart will want to take up the matter with those who have responsibility for that. It is perfectly possible for any MSP to reflect on the statistics when they are published and to bring the matter up when we are back after the recess. I look forward with great interest to Mr Lockhart’s take on that.

Alex Rowley spoke about the need to involve a range of people in the process to inform our work. I think that he referred to trade unions and local authorities in particular having a role to play. I absolutely concur with that perspective, and I am sure that he will be happy to know that we have established a devolved employment services advisory group, which is independently chaired by Professor Alan McGregor, who is the director of the University of Glasgow’s training and employment research unit. Professor McGregor has many years—probably more years than he would care for me to make clear to Parliament—of experience in the area, and he is directing that work. I am sure that Mr Rowley will be happy to know that the Scottish Trades Union Congress is represented on that group, too, as is local government, through the Scottish local authorities economic development group. We are taking forward that range of involvement.

I would not disagree with Mr Rowley’s point about local authorities playing a leadership role in delivering employment support at a local level. As I always am, I have been very happy to meet Councillor Harry McGuigan in his Convention of Scottish Local Authorities spokesperson role. I met him last month, and we had a very productive discussion about the need for us to work productively together to ensure that all elements of employment support work together more cohesively, whether they are provided by the Scottish Government with the new element of the devolved employment programme or delivered by local authorities. That is not an easy challenge to respond to, but both of us were keen to see it taken forward. Scottish Government officials will meet the Scottish local authorities economic development group later this month to see how we can take forward that agenda.

Annie Wells spoke about the need to reach out to those who need support most. I could not disagree with that perspective. That will be essential. She also said that we need to learn from the current schemes that are deployed.

Adam Tomkins spoke about the benefits of the pricing and payment model that is currently used and suggested that it incentivises sustained employment. It will come as no surprise to Professor Tomkins that I have engaged on those matters with a range of people and have heard that under the current model there are perverse disincentives to work with those who need the most support. Indeed, the DWP evaluation confirms that. In my meeting with One Parent Families Scotland this morning, we discussed the problems of the payment-by-results model.

There will, of course, be expectations of outcomes from providers to get people into sustained employment, but we need to recognise the issue that I have raised about the perverse disincentive to reach out to those who need most support. We must recognise the need to take account of various factors that affect people’s lives—Sandra White, Christina McKelvie and Alex Rowley made that point—which may require us to take a slightly more nuanced approach.

I welcome Pauline McNeill’s comments. She said that she was broadly supportive of our approach, which is something that seems to have been reflected in the comments of most members who spoke today. She said that she hopes not to see a fight between the Scottish Government and the UK Government; to be clear, I do not want to see that, either. We have been working closely with the DWP and Jobcentre Plus from the very start to ensure the effective devolution of the powers—that might reassure Willie Rennie, who also took an interest in that aspect. There has been effective intergovernmental working with regard to the delivery of the powers, and a joint ministerial working group has been established to oversee the smooth transition of the new social security and employability powers to Scotland. I look forward to attending the next meeting of that group next week. The advisory group that I referred to a moment ago features representation from the DWP and Jobcentre Plus, and officials from both Governments meet regularly. Joint working is embedded in a number of areas.

I am in no way seeking a confrontation with the UK Government. On 16 December 2015, Iain Duncan Smith sent a letter to the then Cabinet Secretary for Fair Work, Skills and Training that says clearly:

“Design of employment support programmes in Scotland will be for the Scottish Government to decide, including the extent of conditionality in those programmes.”

Further, Damian Green wrote to me this week, saying:

“With regards to the employability programmes being transferred to the Scottish Parliament under the Scotland Act 2016, it is of course a matter for the Scottish Government to decide how conditionality should be applied in practice.”

I can clearly demonstrate work that is being done between the Governments. We are not fighting with each other. However, that does not mean that I will not robustly defend the approach that we seek to take in Scotland with regard to our employment programme. Let me be clear: given what we have had in writing from the UK Government—not once but twice—I expect the UK Government to respect our perspective in Scotland. I will continue to work with it to ensure that that happens.

We believe that our voluntary approach is the best way forward. Mr Rennie and Mr Leonard spoke about William Beveridge, who once said:

“The State in organising security should ... leave room and encouragement for voluntary action by each individual to provide more than that minimum for”—

using the gendered language of his time—

“himself and his family.”

A voluntary approach is entirely consistent with the approach that we have taken with our other employability programmes, which I think allows us to take people with us rather than creating a situation in which we work against them. I believe that we can deliver a person-centred and person-focused approach, and that that will enable us to deliver more. However, we must ensure that we disentangle ourselves from what I view as the UK Government’s debunked and failed sanctions regime.

It was interesting to hear Conservative speakers referring to the Joseph Rowntree Foundation’s view that,

“For those who can, work is the best route out of poverty”.

No member of this chamber will disagree with that. However, what I did not hear from Adam Tomkins, Alison Harris or Dean Lockhart is that the Joseph Rowntree Foundation has also said that benefit sanctions lead to unfavourable longer-term outcomes for earnings, job quality and employment retention.

Speaker after speaker told us story after story of the real and practical effect of sanctions on people, and I can speak from my experience of dealing with constituents who are going through the sanctions regime. I say to Alison Harris that we are not carping; we are seeking to protect the interests of the people of Scotland, and our employability programme will in no way facilitate the UK Government’s sanctions regime.