The Bishop of Bristol spoke in a debate on a report from the Economic Affairs Committee on workers on 8th February 2024, emphasising the value of meaningful work and drawing attention to the findings of the Archbishops Commission on Families & Households:
The Lord Bishop of Bristol: My Lords, it is a pleasure to speak in this important debate about the nature of the UK workforce in a challenging economic climate. I pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Bridges, as have others, and all the members of the Economic Affairs Committee who worked to produce this report and have stimulated our thinking today.
On a personal note, having recently found it hard to recruit lay staff to my office in Bristol, I am very grateful for being informed by the report we are debating today. At the heart of my diocese, you can find the New Room, the chapel where John Wesley led the first Methodist congregation from 1739. As part of his pioneering ministry, he offered “Rules of a Helper” to ordained Ministers, the first of which is:
“Never be unemployed a moment, never be triflingly employed, never while away time”.
While the word “unemployed” might have pricked the ears of your Lordships in the context of this debate, the final clause may be the significant one here. In effect, we are reminded about the importance of using our time on earth well. There is work to be done, good news to share and disciples to be made. Wesley was on to something. There is great purpose and fulfilment to be found in using our time well, maximising our skills and ensuring we fulfil our potential. It enriches our lives and the lives of our community, and that is central to my remarks today.
I pay tribute to the work of the charity Livability as I begin by considering the area of disability. Livability seeks to improve the quality of life for people with disabilities and to create a life that adds up for them. Five of Livability’s 10 residents in Eastbourne—Stacey, Debbie, Bob, Linda and Shaun—are in in work, well above the national average for disabled people, finding independence and fulfilment in jobs that enable them to serve others. Several of the residents in Eastbourne engaged with the Archbishops’ Commission on Reimagining Care, helping to guide the commission’s thinking and the articulation of a vision in which everyone can be supported to flourish, regardless of age or ability.
Good employers play an important role in developing every employee’s skills. There are many good employers, including, I have no doubt, the employers of our friends at Livability, but we need to ensure that employers are doing everything they can to meet their obligations under the Equality Act and to make reasonable adjustments for disabled employees, making them feel welcome in practice as well as in their procedures. In the last Autumn Statement, the Government made significant efforts to encourage disabled people back into work. A Government Minister noted that disabled people should do their duty and work if they could. An emphasis was made on encouraging disabled people therefore to work from home, yet the sectors with the most significant shortages—social care, hospitality and retail—provide few jobs which can be done effectively from home.
There are wider societal implications from the absence of workers in our economic environment. The report we are discussing today demonstrates that the shortages in the labour market are particularly acute because people are retiring earlier. We have heard that laid out extensively. At the same time, just this week, the International Longevity Centre has released a report saying that the state pension age might need to increase to keep in line the proportion of workers per state pensioner. Without more careful consideration about the nature, attractiveness and meaning of work itself, we risk becoming an ever more unequal society in which people work longer than they probably should to maintain services for people well enough to work but with the means to retire early.
The report of the Archbishops’ Commission on Families and Households noted that the pandemic changed much about how we think about our work, relationships and well-being. I note that the committee’s report reflected on early retirements triggered by the pandemic as being a lifestyle choice for many, which undoubtedly is true for some with the means to do so. I add that a contributing factor must also be the weight of the loss we have shared together with our families and communities. As the Covid inquiry continues, the extent of the loss and bereavement we faced is something with which we may only be beginning to come to terms.
Finally, this report quite reasonably focuses on the employment picture in the immediate aftermath of the pandemic. The pandemic showed us just how quickly circumstances can change. The development of artificial intelligence and the rapid pace of change we are seeing as a result of generative AI leave us with profound moral questions as we consider the future of work. Technology is not neutral. We need a set of principles which underpin our engagement with this fourth industrial revolution. It is not clear where we are heading. The Church of England will be exploring this in the coming weeks as we seek to engage with the Rome call for an ethical approach to AI and deeper reflection on the crucial elements of fair and fulfilling work in the face of AI and technologies to come. In the meantime, the committee’s report is excellent and gives us much to think about in terms of understanding employment trends. I am grateful for it and for this debate.
Extracts from the speeches that followed:
Baroness Kramer (LD): Like a lot of people, I very much hope that Al will give us a productivity revolution and, essentially, resolve our demographic shortfall. One hears this spoken of widely. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Bristol made the point that AI comes with many issues, complications and moral questions. I would add another word of caution around the simple assumption that AI will drive forward this kind of change in productivity. The House will remember that, many years ago, we discussed the notion that first came the agricultural revolution, which drove up productivity, and then the Industrial Revolution drove it up, and then in the 1990s we expected that the digital revolution would follow the same pattern. But in the UK at least—quite a number of noble Lords have talked about our weak productivity performance—the digital revolution changed the way we work but led to no rise in our productivity.
Baroness Sherlock (Lab): I take the points given for colour by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Bristol that Covid had more complex relationships than we yet properly know. I suspect quite a lot of people were traumatised in ways that are only beginning to surface down the line. That may be having effects that we have not properly begun to understand. I also take the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Balfe, that one of the things that defines work and separates it from activities we choose is choice. That is pretty important to making such choices, and there is not a lot that the Government can do about that; nor, as the noble Lord said, can the Government stop people using their savings in general. However, the state has a legitimate interest in savings to which the taxpayer has contributed, by giving tax relief on pension contributions, so I am interested to hear what the Government have to say about that.
(…)
There is also the question of disability, raised by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Bristol. Disabled people are almost twice as likely to be unemployed and three times as likely to be economically inactive as non-disabled people, and yet they are more likely to want a job. What are we doing to make that possible? The Access to Work programme is key to this, but the waiting list quadrupled in two years, and, by last September, over 22,000 people were waiting for their applications to be heard. Can the Minister tell us what is happening with that?
The final driver was changes in the structure of migration. I do not have time to discuss them in any detail, but they were addressed by the noble Lord, Lord Bilimoria, and a number of other noble Lords. The noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, is right: we need a bigger debate on that as a matter by itself. Like others, I have received clear briefings about the impact on particular sectors, such as hospitality and agriculture, and it has been interesting today to listen to noble Lords describe the sectors they know. This issue is not just about the economy: most of us would like to drink the beer of the noble Lord, Lord Bilimoria; many of us will have pets that we would like to be treated by the colleagues of the noble Lord, Lord de Clifford; many people want to buy products from the SMEs described by the noble Lord, Lord Londesborough; and, as a Church of England priest, I certainly want to know that my bishops are properly supported and that the right reverend Prelate can get the staff she needs in her diocese. Although this issue hits certain sectors, it is not just about economic growth but about the quality of life in our country.
Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con, DWP): First, on the important issue of long-term sickness and disability, which is now the most common reason stated for economic inactivity, the Government share the concern of noble Lords here today regarding increased economic inactivity levels for those who are disabled or long-term sick. I share the comments of my noble friend Lord Bridges on the statistic that one in five in the 16 to 64 group are inactive. The 2.8 million long-term sick figure is certainly one for great concern.
As the noble Lords, Lord Londesborough and Lord Layard, and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Bristol mentioned, we know that rewarding work is hugely beneficial for mental health and well-being, which is why this Government have an ambitious programme of initiatives to support disabled people and people with health conditions, including mental health conditions, into employment. They include increased work coach support and disability employment advisers in jobcentres; the Work and Health Programme and intensive personalised employment support; Access to Work grants—I reassure the noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock, that the backlog is reducing; I will follow up with her on that and give some figures proving that that is correct—the Disability Confident scheme; the information and advice service; and employment advice in NHS Talking Therapies, which was raised by the noble Lord, Lord Layard.
(…)
The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Bristol spoke about disabled people. Let me say a few words about them. The Government are determined to do more to help close the disability employment gap and help more disabled and long-term sick people into work. That is why we have announced even more support targeted at this group over the past year. I will quickly reel some examples off: expanding the existing additional Work Coach support programme; introducing universal support, a new supported employment programme for disabled people; launching WorkWell, which will bring together the NHS, local authorities and other partners in collaboration with jobcentres; introducing employment advisers to musculoskeletal conditions services in England; and, importantly, consulting on occupational health provision in the workplace, as well as expanding the funding for the forthcoming small and medium-sized enterprise subsidy pilot for occupational health services. This week, we also published the Disability Action Plan, setting out 32 practical actions that the Government will take forward over the next 12 months to improve disabled people’s daily lives; noble Lords will be aware that I updated the House on this on Tuesday evening.
Lord Bridges of Headley (Con): This brings me to my third area—what we are doing to help those who are already inactive. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Bristol spoke very movingly and properly about the communities that are being hit, and we again must ask ourselves if we are focusing our attention properly. Just one fact: more than a third of working-age people in Liverpool, Manchester and Nottingham are economically inactive. I hang my head in shame about that; it is an appalling statistic. What are we doing? Is our approach here joined up too?
We have to do this, and urgently. I heard Mel Stride, the Secretary of State for the DWP, say on the radio the other day, “We have a lot of work to do”. He is absolutely right. I pick up on what the noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock, said: we were informed via his letter that he had done this review and set out his programme of action. On Monday, the ONS showed in its statistics what that is doing and the indicators are going in the wrong direction. So he is quite right: there is a lot of work to do here.
The Church of England in Parliament 
You must be logged in to post a comment.