Councils are drawing up long-term plans for their area over the next decade and beyond. Known as the sustainable community strategy, the plans are agreed by all the partners in a local authority area – not just the council.
In Lambeth, we’re giving our strategy a very clear focus on tackling worklessness. So many of the challenges we face are rooted in poverty, and getting people into meaningful work is the best long-term solution. The urgency of this agenda was brought home to me by three simple facts:
One in every five adults of working age in Lambeth is workless; one in three children are brought up in a household on benefits; and if you’re on incapacity benefit for two years or more, you’re more likely to die or retire than ever work again.
Add to this the fact that being long-term workless has the same effect on your health as being a heavy smoker and you quickly grasp the scale of the problem. While the government should be proud that unemployment nationally is at a historic low, there are still significant pockets of worklessness in places like inner London. Some communities are hit harder than others – for instance, our local Somali community suffers 90% male unemployment.
The problem of worklessness is concentrated on estates. There are children growing up who have little experience of work as a concept, and little expectation that they will ever get a well paid job. That sense of hopelessness and exclusion from the mainstream is one reason some young people get involved in crime, including violent gangs. They feel there is no realistic alternative. It’s our job to give those people back hope and a sense that they too can share in the wealth of our country.
While the Lib Dems and Tories were running our council, they simply ignored this problem. Their community strategy made no attempt to tackle worklessness on the right-wing assumption that you can’t buck the market. That view is not just wrong, it is downright dangerous.
Along with other Labour councils like Manchester and Hackney, Lambeth is now forging a strong partnership with business to bring skills training and job opportunities to people living where worklessness remains high. We’re promoting small business start-ups, especially within more excluded communities. All our public sector partners have committed to offer work experience opportunities – despite being the largest local employer, under the Lib Dems the council didn’t have a work experience programme.
Particular groups of workless people need more targeted support. Mothers returning to work after childbirth; young people with no employment, education or training; disabled people; and people on long-term incapacity benefit. It’s a hugely complex agenda, but abandoning it to the market is political negligence. It’s shocking to see just how right-wing Lib Dems can be when they win power – adopting socially divisive policies that amount to Thatcherism at its most despicable.
The reason why the Lib Dems pursued this right-wing agenda is a matter of cynical political calculation. They know that the areas worst affected tend to be represented by Labour councillors. Tackling the problem means diverting resources to those areas where the need is greatest. Instead, they preferred a model that allocated resources on a per-capita basis – effectively, depriving poorer communities so they could spend more in better-off areas that are more likely to vote Lib Dem.
When people tell me local government doesn’t matter, this is the kind of issue I’d point to. Labour’s social justice agenda is as important to our town halls as it is in national government. Leave it to the Lib Dems and that agenda is quickly abandoned in favour of party political expediency. Only Labour councils are truly committed to tackling the poverty and inequality that results from people being denied the chance to work.