Chuka Umunna MP

This week’s Pre-Budget Report reflects Labour’s determination to maintain frontline public services, protect the environment and ensure bankers do not continue to profit while taxpayers pay for their mistakes.

Employment
Unemployment continues to be at the forefront of issues the government is tackling. Several new measures were included in the Pre-Budget Report:

- Guarantees of a place for every 16 and 17 year-old in education or training to be available to school leavers again in September 2010.
- From next month, no one under 24 will be unemployed for longer than six months before being guaranteed work or training – down from 12 months.
- The minimum number of hours those over 65 need to work to receive working tax credit will be reduced.
- The government is offering financial support for 10,000 undergraduates from poor backgrounds to take up internships in industry and the professions.

Pensions and Benefits
- Basic state pension will rise by 2.5 per cent in April.
- Additional support for mortgage interest scheme for the unemployed extended for six months.
- Child and disability benefit will rise by 1.5 per cent in April.
- Free school meals to be extended among primary pupils in low-income families from September 2010.

Taxation
- A one-off levy of 50 per cent is being applied to bank bonuses above £25,000, to be paid by the bank, not the employee. This is expected to create £550 million which will be invested in jobs for young people. Chuka has campaigned for the government to impose a one-off tax on banks.
- New tax avoidance laws ensuring that an extra £5bn per year will be protected from evasion and avoidance.
- No increase in income tax.

Environment and Energy
Streatham’s recent Q&A on Climate Change with Chuka and Ed Miliband reflects Labour’s commitment to protecting our environment:

- A new scrappage scheme, similar to the highly successful car scrappage scheme, to help replace 125,000 inefficient boilers.
- From April 2010, people who have a home wind turbine or solar panels and send power back to the national grid will receive, on average, a tax-free payment of £900 a year.
- Electric cars will be exempted from company car tax for five years, with a 100% first year capital allowance for electric vans.
- Doubling government finance for carbon capture and storage demonstration projects.
- An additional £200m of funding for energy efficiency schemes.
- £120m for new low-carbon industries in the UK.
- Helping more vulnerable households with energy bills; doubling support provided by energy companies to £300m by 2013/14

Small Businesses
The government is committed to helping local businesses through the recovery:

- An increase in corporation tax for small firms will be deferred.
- The Time To Pay scheme, allowing firms to spread tax payments will be extended for as long as is needed.
- Allowing the scheme for bank loans to small businesses to be extended for a further 12 months, guaranteeing a further £500m of loans.
- Encouraging growth and innovation through reductions in corporation tax relating to new patents.
- The new Growth Capital Fund will be set up to invest in small and medium enterprises.

The Department for Work and Pensions has launched a new investment programme to tackle unemployment for young people aged 18-24.

The government has pledged £1bn, and any organisation from the public, private or third sector can apply for funding with the long term aim of creating 150,000 additional jobs aimed at young people who have been out of work for nearly a year to deliver real benefits to communities.

During these tough economic times, it is important that our young aspiring men and women have access to work, training and education. This is a new approach for creating jobs and will provide hope for young people and job seekers in deprived communities.

Organisations in Streatham, which is one of the youngest constituencies in the country, can take the lead in providing new jobs for young people.

Lambeth First has already been awarded more than £1.2 million to help 18-24 year olds into local work under the Future Jobs Fund. The new central government funding will help create 198 new jobs in the borough over the next six months for young people who would normally be at risk of becoming long-term unemployed.

The government anticipates that 10,000 new jobs are to be created within the culture, media and sport sectors following successful bids to the Future Jobs Fund.

For more information visit the Future Jobs Fund site.

The government has launched a new careers strategy to modernise careers education and make sure every that young person, whatever their background, can aim for the top.

The scheme was launched in collaboration with football legends Sir Alex Ferguson and Ryan Giggs.

It aims to make a real difference for children in Streatham by offering them support and guidance beginning earlier, at primary school.

The proposals include the following initiatives:

- Providing a £10 million fund to support innovative ways of delivering careers education.

- Every young person will have access to a mentor – two new national mentoring champions will help increase mentoring opportunities between schools, businesses and higher education.

- Moving careers advice into the 21st Century with better online access to careers advice through Facebook, You Tube, blogs and forums and a new dedicated online mentoring scheme from 2010 to enable young people to contact professionals online.

The scheme aims to give more help to disadvantaged and disabled young people in accessing work experience so that all young people – regardless of their background, ethnicity or gender – can realise their full potential.

Every young person will get careers education up to the age of 18 in line with raising the school leaving age.

The new strategy has been endorsed by Manchester United player Ryan Giggs:

“Mentoring was very important to my career, Sir Alex has been a mentor to me since I started out and has helped me not only in football but in my life. If young people can receive the kind of mentoring that I did it, it is sure to give them a good start in their chosen field and lead them to success.”

A key emphasis of the government’s scheme is the partnership of schools, businesses and parents, on which Sir Alex Ferguson said:

“All sorts of people can influence children in their career choices, but it is important that teachers, parents and businesses spot talent early on and nurture young people to achieve the best they can.”

The Conservatives are set to adopt anti-trade union legislation which would go much further than Margeret Thatcher ever dared to tread with plans which would shackle workers by effectively removing unions’ ability to take industrial action.

They want to create new and prohibitively high turnout thresholds for strike ballots, according to a recent Guardian report.

A majority of people eligible to vote would have to vote yes – not just those people actually taking part in the ballot.

However, not a single Conservative MP was elected by a majority of electors in their constituency.

It is thought that David Cameron also intends to revive the idea of banning strikes in services such as the Fire Brigade and public transport.

These changes would derail the positive steps the Labour government has taken to ensure that unions can democratically represent their members.

The right to strike is a fundamental part of democracy and the proposals would effectively take this away.

Find out more about the campaign to protect union rights and sign the Unions Together petition.

Every day unions help thousands of people at work. This includes negotiating for better pay and conditions, campaigning for a fair deal at home and abroad and working with employers to expand training and development programmes. Last year unions also won £1 million in equal pay claims – an average of £15,000 per member.

This excellent video highlights the positive impact trade unions have made for society as a whole.

Below is a video about the People’s Supermarket, that is being established in Lambeth, which I am a strong supporter of.  It will offer a new way of shopping that aims to change the way we buy food. In short, it is a supermarket that is run by the people, for the people, selling the best food at the lowest possible prices.

I think the People’s Supermarket is a good antidote to the dominance of the increasingly dominant big supermarket chains. From a political view point, if we are to break the grip of big business and the market over our lives, we need to explore different forms of ownership and organisations like this – the People’s Supermarket is a great model. For more information, watch the my video interview below and visit: www.peoplessupermarket.org.

I have read with interest about Alan Milburn MP’s social mobility report published this week (there is a video of Alan talking about his report at the bottom of this post).  For me, tackling outstanding inequalities and the lack of social mobility is a priority. Reading the reports and comment on this topic this week reminded me of an article I wrote for the Financial Times in August 2006, which I have reproduced below, for those who would like to revisit it:

The City has dramatically changed over the past two decades. The nostalgic image of the bowler-hatted gentleman sauntering to work is long gone. In its place reigns the slick-suited, BlackBerry-carrying guy or girl shouting across a crowded dealing room. However, there is one constant – the City is still overwhelmingly white.

Mention ethnic diversity in a City conference room and the ensuing awkward silence conveys a clear message: everyone knows it is an issue but no one wants to do anything about it. Some even deny it is an issue at all, with one senior partner of a City law firm reportedly claiming not to know the meaning of the term “diversity”.

Those of us who have worked in the City see few faces of colour in the glass palaces that populate the square mile, particularly in front office and senior roles. The facts are stark. Just 2.5 per cent of FTSE 100 board members are from ethnic minorities, according to Cranfield School of Management, and there is one non-white chief executive, Arun Sarin at Vodafone (an import from the US). Fewer than 3 per cent and 4 per cent respectively of the partners of most prestigious City law and accountancy firms are drawn from a non-white background, according to Legal Week and Accountancy Age. The investment banks cleverly give percentages based on global headcount rather than a City office breakdown – I wonder why? When one considers that almost one in three Londoners is from a non-white background, the figures are quite shocking.

“But there is a dearth of suitable candidates,” is the cry of City personnel departments. This argument does not hold up in 2006. Record numbers of ethnic minority students are entering higher education and they are more likely to go to university than their white counterparts. More of them are entering the professions than ever before, so why do disparities remain in the City? A recruitment agency, Talent! Recruitment, which specialises in hiring diverse workforces, was recently asked by a City accountancy outfit to find candidates for certain roles. Talent found diverse candidates with excellent degrees and from the “preferred” universities. The candidates were rejected on the grounds that they lacked “polish”. Herein lies the problem: culture and class.

It seems that senior managers are doomed to recruit in their own image. Above and beyond the required qualifications and skills, they look to recruit candidates they could have “a drink and a laugh” with and with whom they would feel comfortable working under severe pressure. Many of these mostly white, upper-middle class, middle-aged men have little experience of forging close relationships with people from another class, let alone from an ethnic minority.

The wine bar and the pub are the after-work venues of choice which, for example, excludes whole swaths of Muslim employees. Golf is often the corporate entertainment activity of choice – how many black people, other than wealthy footballers and Tiger Woods, does one see on a golf course?

Class determines access to the networks and mentors that provide careers advice and arrange work experience, which are important factors in helping young people choose their careers. More important, it determines which university you attend. African and Caribbean children who are largely drawn from the lower socioeconomic classes will gravitate towards universities close to their family home, primarily for financial reasons, rather than to the “preferred” universities. This means that City employers, who tend to focus resources on recruiting from the Russell Group of top universities, fail to reach these candidates.

So what is to be done? City recruiters who are serious about addressing ethnic diversity in the workplace must widen the pool of universities they focus on and they need to work with London’s ethnic minorities to improve access to work-experience programmes for youngsters. However, all of this will come to nothing if culture and class continue to be obstacles.

Those who buy the City’s services should use their purchasing power to force change. Barclays recently demanded diversity statistics from every City law firm it uses. There is evidence that this practice, which has been used in the US for some time, is beginning to spread but it is not enough. Action is needed from one of the biggest procurers of City services: the government.

If we are serious about building greater equality in Britain, we must tackle the rampant inequality in the City. In today’s world, money and power are inextricably linked. If ethnic minorities fail to progress in the City, their power and influence will continue to be compromised. In purchasing City services such as pension fund management, the government should invite tenders only from City businesses that publish diversity figures – that would be a start.

The next step would be to consider rejecting tenders from City businesses with workforces that do not reflect the society the government serves. The law may need to change to allow this, but it would certainly concentrate minds.

Update: The Labour government’s Equality Bill, due to receive royal assent in 2010, will make it clear that public bodies will be able to use procurement to drive equality. It will enable Ministers to set out how public bodies should go about doing so.  With an annual expenditure of around £175 billion every year on goods and services – about 13% of GDP – the public sector will soon be able to use its purchasing power to promote equality thanks to the Bill.

Chuka and Kate Hoey, MP for neighbouring Vauxhall, have joined forces with the Communications Workers Union to oppose the part privatisation of Royal Mail. Kate and Chuka joined Communications Workers Union members and officials last week in a demonstration against the proposed privatisation at the major Royal Mail sorting office in Nine Elms.

Chuka is supporting the alternative proposals for Royal Mail’s future outlined by Compass, the left wing pressure group on whose managing committee he sits. The plans recommend that Royal Mail be kept in public ownership as a non-for-profit body, following the model set by National Rail, which was established as successor to the failed privatisation of the railways under Railtrack. The proposals would give the Royal Mail access to both private and public resources and it would remain operationally separate from government in the same way as the BBC does.

Privatisation of Royal Mail could threaten jobs at distribution centres including Nine Elms and Streatham sorting offices. The universal service which Royal Mail offers would also be at risk with services cherry-picked on the basis of profit, rather than the benefit of all users. This week, it was announced that Royal Mail’s profits have doubled, with all parts of its business turning a profit. This undermines the case for part privatisations, reinforcing the fact that Royal Mail is far from being the failed organisation it has often been portrayed as.

Commenting on proposals for privatisation, Chuka said: “The Royal Mail plays an important role in all of our daily lives, and we deserve the best from it. Everyone, including Royal Mail employees, management and users, agree that modernisation and investment is necessary, but selling off the postal service is not the way to achieve these goals. Modernisation doesn’t have to mean privatisation.”

Greg Charles, secretary of the CWU London South West (Postal) Branch said: “The governments plan to part privatise Royal Mail coupled with management’s plans on modernisation will lead to a worsened service, failing collections and failing deliveries, whilst profits will be siphoned of by our competitors. Our members across South London are living with the fear of cuts in jobs, cuts in earnings and an uncertain future.”

Read more about Compass’ proposals for Royal Mail’s future here.

Chuka Umunna, Labour’s Parliamentary Candidate for Streatham, has strongly welcomed the Equality Bill but, along with local older peoples groups, has called on the government to go further.

The Equality Bill received its First Reading in the House of Commons on Monday. It sets out new laws which will help narrow the gap between rich and poor, require business to report on gender pay and will outlaw age discrimination in services amongst other measures. The Bill is expected to come in to force from autumn 2010.

Despite considerable progress since 1997, inequality and discrimination still exist which is why the law needs to be strengthened:

* women are paid on average 23 per cent less per hour than men;
* disabled people are twice as likely to be out of work;
* people from ethnic minority backgrounds, who make up more than 1 in 3 of the population in Lambeth, are nearly a fifth less likely to find work; and,
* 1 in 5 older people are refused quotes for motor or travel insurance, or car hire.

Commenting on the Bill, Chuka Umunna, Labour’s Parliamentary Candidate for Streatham and a specialist employment law solicitor by profession, said:

“I believe in equality for all and have supported the government’s moves to stamp out discrimination wherever it may appear because, as a solicitor who represents hardworking people, I know what a difference it makes to people’s working lives.

“This Bill is about fairness. It is about everyone in our community getting fair treatment. So in Streatham it might mean making sure there are extra benches in local parks so older people can enjoy public spaces or providing play areas for younger people so they can make the most of them too.”

“It is a scandal that women are still paid less than men in this country, so I am particularly pleased the Bill will contain the power to require employers with more than 250 employees to report on the gender pay gap in their work place so inequalities can be identified and challenged.”

One of the provisions of the Equality Bill will make it unlawful to discriminate against someone because of their age outside of the work place, when providing goods and services. For example, a 75 year who enquires about travel insurance should get a quote which accurately reflects the level of risk she faces, not an arbitrary assumption about how healthy people of her age generally are.

However, in the work place, the Bill does not abolish the statutory default retirement age of 65 which enables employers to force employees to retire at or after 65, or refuse to recruit anyone over the age of 65. Umunna and local older peoples activists have called on the government to address this. Umunna said

“The extension of the existing regime to outlaw age discrimination out of the work place in the provisions of good and services is excellent. But, as the Bill makes its passage through parliament, I want to see it abolish the default retirement age in the work place so older people can work past the age of 65 if they want to.”

Ellen Lebethe, Chair of Lambeth Pensioners Action Group, said:
“If we want to and are still fit and able, we should be allowed to work. Our experience should be acknowledged by employers and remunerated accordingly.”

Martin Walsh, a founder member and former Chair of Lambeth Pensioners Forum, said:
“The government must encourage people to work on for their health and well being as work promotes longevity.”

Other measures in the Equality Bill include:
· putting a new duty on public bodies to consider how to reduce socio-economic inequalities;
· putting a new Equality Duty on public bodies;
· using public procurement to improve equality;
· extending powers to use positive action;
· protecting carers from discrimination;
· protecting pregnant and new mothers;
· banning discrimination in private clubs; and
· strengthening protection from discrimination for disabled people.

Harriet Harman, Member of Parliament for nearby Camberwell and Peckham and the Minister for Women and Equality responsible for the Bill said:

“The Equality Bill is part of building a strong fair future for Britain out of the downturn. That means fairness and opportunity. Especially in tougher economic times, we need to face the problems fairly and we need to look for a fairer future.”

The government has launched Graduate Talent Pool, an online portal which matches employers able to offer internships with graduates who want to take them up.

The scheme is designed to help prevent recent graduates falling into unemployment in the current economic climate, allowing them to increase their employability by gaining skills and experience through an internship. Whilst the online service will go live later this year, major firms and organisations including Network Rail, Microsoft and Marks & Spencer have already signed up.

Streatham is one of the youngest constituencies in the UK and also has a high proportion of graduates, with the number of young people going into higher education in Streatham having risen by 81.7% since 1997. In the 1980s and early 1990s the area suffered disproportionately from the problem of youth and graduate unemployment. The government is determined that unlike then, the difficult times we are going through now must not result in a lost generation, locked in unemployment and lacking the skills and experience to find work. Alongside the Talent Pool, an additional 14,000 postgraduate places are to be offered by universities, supported by Professional and Career Development Loans.

Chuka, commenting on the announcement, said: “It is crucial that we don’t leave a generation of bright young people behind, as happened in the 1980s. Internships are a valuable way of passing on skills and opening doors to further opportunities in the future”.

For more information about the talent pool and internship opportunities for graduates, visit this site.