Crawley has always been a pioneering town, unafraid of change – we are leading the way in education reforms with new academies and free schools; health reforms with a pathfinder GP commissioning consortium; policing reforms with our embrace of the merits of a Police & Crime Commissioner and the business-led initiative to crack down on alcohol fuelled anti-social behaviour; and now welfare reforms with a pioneering new Work Programme centre run by Royal British Legion Industries (RBLI).
We spend £90 billion each year on welfare support (excluding pensions) for working age people. With two million workless households under the previous Government there were more children growing up in households where nobody works than almost any other nation in Europe. Half of newly created jobs under Labour went to foreign nationals and so the present Government’s welfare reforms have supported 700,000 of the country’s unemployed onto the Work Programme and reduced youth unemployment to lower than under the end of the last Government.
In short, we need a welfare system that pays to work: supporting those that need our help; equipping those who can work; and providing the taxpayer with a fair deal.
It was with great pleasure, therefore, that I recently had the immensely proud task of officially opening the RBLI’s Work Programme Delivery Centre, in conjunction with the Department for Work & Pensions, in Crawley’s Overline House recently.
The project focuses on targeted and personal support for the long-term unemployed in finding work and has already helped 900 people locally, 20 percent of whom are 18-25 year olds and over-50s. RBL also specifically support jobless ex-service personnel.
The project will help equip numerous local residents, who have been entrapped on benefit support, to find work. This will significantly reduce the number of workless households in Crawley and ensure that the next generation of local residents are inspired and motivated to work to ensure a more prosperous future for themselves and their families.
The Centre will be part of this Government’s introduction of the largest welfare to work programme the UK has seen since the Great Depression, with a £1 billion package to help get our young people into work and apprenticeships for 142 young people every single day. In addition, anyone who is unemployed and can produce a viable business plan will now be given immediate access to £2,000 worth of financial support.
Over the past year our town has seen thousands of new private sector jobs created, large multi-national companies locating to Crawley and apprenticeship numbers up by 74 percent. I am also pleased to report that recent local employment figures show that our town’s unemployment rate has fallen to 3.7 percent.
I appreciate that being out of work can be a huge personal tragedy. That is why the Government is dedicated to ensuring every single person who wants to work hard and get on in life has the skills they need to compete and thrive in the global race.