As the Liberal Democrats prepare for their annual conference, Birmingham Lib Dem MP John Hemming tells Political Editor Jonathan Walker of his job creation vision
A Birmingham MP has called time on the dream of full employment – and hailed part-time work as the key to creating a more inclusive society.
Liberal Democrat John Hemming said a restructuring of the tax and benefits system would allow more employees to drop their hours, while enabling others to find work.
Speaking in advance of his party’s annual conference in Birmingham, Mr Hemming said economic growth was unlikely to bring back full employment even once the current worldwide financial turmoil came to an end.
And he said a move towards a part-time labour force would end the culture of employees “working stupid hours or not at all”.
“You have to have a core society in which people can participate,” Mr Hemming said. “There is a danger we will have a relatively small number of people working very hard and others not really having participation.”
New job figures show unemployment in the West Midlands stands at 239,000, a rate of 9.1 per cent, up from 235,000 over three months.
Liberal Democrats descend on Birmingham this weekend for a party conference beginning on Saturday and concluding with party leader Nick Clegg’s speech on Wednesday afternoon.
Mr Hemming said he hoped to use the conference to set out his concerns about the economy.
“Reducing tax on the low paid is key because it’s encouraging people into low paid work,” he said. “But I want to look more widely and see how can we devise an economy which has greater levels of participation. If you think back 40 years ago, somebody could become a skilled manufacturing worker and have a reasonable lifestyle, get a house to live in, bring up a family, go on holiday and have some security about their life.
“A lot of that security has faded away. And that has a lot to do with technology. You don’t need so many people to do what we do.
“You have to try to create an economy which has greater levels of participation, which may mean more people working for fewer hours a week.
“So you say, how do we encourage people to work part time?
“You structure the tax and benefits system to justify that. Which is what the government’s doing, but they’re not thinking explicitly about how you have a society you can assume everyone can participate in.
“It’s not about banning people working full time. It’s about having a system that encourages people to share the work, rather than having a system that encourages people to either work stupid hours or not at all.”
Delegates attending the conference will be handed a directory detailing the fringe meetings taking place, with a remarkably pessimistic introduction from MP Tim Farron, the party president.
Referring to May’s local elections, when the Lib Dems lost 747 council seats, he writes: “The consequences of being in power and of not getting our messages across to the public at large have been particularly distressing.
“For many of you this is the first party conference of any sort since the recent elections.
“If you are coming to conference having lost your seat in May, I am particularly grateful and proud of you. You took the ultimate hit for our national decisions and you did not deserve to lose.”
And he adds: “Clearly we have not succeeded in communicating our message, which has led to a loss of identity and in turn a loss of support.
“It may have been naive of us not to realise the threat we faced as the smaller party in a coalition government, that does not have a single media outlet fighting our corner.”
Mr Hemming agreed the party had failed to communicate with the public, but said he had no doubt it was right to be part of the coalition government.
“We took a kicking in the local elections, which for a party with a lot of councillors is an important issue,” he said.
“You have to be aware that it’s very important to councillors when they lose their seats, and particularly when it’s not their fault.
“It’s mainly the fault of the party nationally not explaining what we are doing.”
