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Full employment for growth, says Labour's Liam Byrne

The Government’s efforts to rebalance the economy are not working, and we need full employment to start paying down national debt.

That was the message from Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary, Liam Byrne MP, as he set out Labour’s “full employment” vision in Newcastle last night.

Mr Byrne was speaking at leftist think tank IPPR North, as he applied Labour’s One Nation theme to Beveridge’s wartime goals of full employment.

He said: “If we restore our country to full employment, we can afford to rebuild; to address the biggest challenges of our times. Full employment has always been the foundation for rebuilding Britain.”

Mr Byrne added: “Today the goal of full employment is important for a very simple reason. The faster we return to full employment, the faster we can pay down our debt, and the faster we can put the something for something back into social security.”

The MP for Birmingham Hodge Hill outlined five areas in which Labour would go about raising employment.

These areas included: tackling youth unemployment; tackling long-term unemployment; raising employment for women; making work right to work a “reality” for disabled people; and ensuring all parts of the country keep pace.

He pointed to examples of how Germany and Canada had tackled unemployment with localised programmes.

He added: “In Germany, a more localised approach has contributed to saving billions of Euros in welfare payments by driving up the employment rate.

“Jobcentres work closely with surrounding schools and have deep roots in the local labour market which allows them to engage with employers far beyond the traditional low skill, low pay sectors.

“In Canada, localised delivery of back to work programmes gives local government the flexibility to establish their own priorities and to develop programmes to achieve this. Provinces and territories control how the funding is allocated in order to meet the needs of their particular labour markets, which in turn gives them the opportunity to apply local expertise to skills development, allocating targeted wage subsidies, and creating Job Creation Partnerships, to help provide useful work experience that leads to sustained employment.”

Mr Byrne’s speech provided little detail on how Labour intended to finance the goal, and closed by saying: “I believe the lesson of our history is simple: We can afford to do big things to repair and renew our country, to pay down our debt faster, to bring fairness back to the system if, and only if, we get people back to work.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Tom Keighley .