29 August 2008

Rt Hon Stephen Timms MP

Minister of State for Employment and Welfare Reform

Opening of Wembley Works

Forum House, Wembley,

Friday 29 August 2008

[Check against delivery]

Thank you Paul [Leader LB Brent]

I am delighted to be here – thanks to Brent in2 Work, the College of North West London and Quintain Estates for inviting me, along with everyone who has helped to make this [extraordinary] centre possible.

Sustainable work, with the opportunity for progression, is the best route out of poverty. And that’s why 6,200 long term jobs, from the transformation of Wembley City, is such great news. I am also delighted that Wembley Works will itself provide an additional 1,600 construction jobs in the Quintain Estates scheme.

Redevelopment of the national football stadium has created a superb icon on the London skyline, its boosted the infrastructure of the area, and it means that more people want now to live and work in Wembley.

Wembley Works will make sure local people get their full share of the jobs being created in the area. And we’re not just talking about jobs for those who already have the skills to work and progress. Wembley Works will make sure people access the skills and training they need if – as will very often be the case – they don’t have them already.

Partnership working
This has been made possible by national and local government working in partnership with the private sector.

The partnership has been a great success so far: Brent Council’s Brent in2Work scheme has used its knowledge of the area to identify the skills needed for jobs in the local economy. And the College of North West London has been working with individuals and with employers to deliver the right training for those skills.

So people in the local area will be able to take up a wide range of employment and training opportunities. And local businesses will benefit from matching the right skills with the right vacancies.

I know that Jobcentre Plus, for which I have ministerial responsibility, has worked well with Brent in2 Work, and let me just thank the Jobcentre Plus partnership manager, for her work here.

And Quintain Estates have provided not only the fine facility we are in today, but also the vision and the expertise to deliver Wembley City, with all its benefits for the area.

City Strategy
My department’s City Strategy Pathfinders, and West London Working is one of them, are showing very powerfully how efficient, effective partnership working of the kind we can see with Brent in2 Work can deliver results for local people – with judgments being made not in Whitehall, but here in West London.

We have extended the City Strategy Pathfinders for a further two years, and we will be looking to use their example as a model for elsewhere too.

The economy
We all know that problems in the world economy are causing us difficulties at the moment. The Wembley project I know has not been immune to them.

And yet, you know, we have more people in jobs in Britian than we have ever had before. The employment rate is high; and unemployment, although it has risen in recent months, remains historically low. And we want to keep it that way.

So we are strengthening our efforts to help people on benefit move into work. In particular, we are bringing employment support and skills support together. Those two systems used to be quite separate – but in the future we want people who obtain help with finding a job to get help with developing their skills as well. So next month we will start a pilot of our Integrated Employment and Skills service, which we will then extend across the country, providing for example a skills health check for every first time visitor to the jobcentre. It will mean that people are not just helped back into work, but also that we will be helping them identify and tackle their skills needs – because, having got into a job, we want people to be able to stay in their job, and progress.

The construction sector has been particularly hard-hit by problems in the housing market. But the energy sector, on the other hand, still suffers from a shortage of skilled workers. So we are working across the public and private sectors to open up opportunities in energy to workers from construction.

Bringing together support for both employment and skills will help make employment sustained, and it will build the best kind of flexibility in the workforce.

Regeneration and the Olympics
All of us enjoyed the extraordinary success of our team in Beijing this month. The athletes’ achievements were superb – there is a new determination and a new confidence about Britain, especially among young people, which shows itself in other areas of young peoples’ achievements as well as in winning Olympic gold medals.

But the successes in Beijing were only possible because of world-class facilities and support built in Britain over the past few years. For every British Gold Medallist there are coaches, sports scientists, security guards, nutritionists, bus drivers, catering staff. And we are going to need a lot more of those people as we prepare for the Games in London in 2012 – thousands of jobs, some of them being recruited for before the end of this year – as well, of course, as the construction workers.

In 2012, we will be the centre of the world’s attention. Wembley will play host to both the men’s and women’s Olympic football finals and these concourses and thoroughfares will – as so often in the past – be thronging with athletes, supporters and the world’s press.

Hotels, shops and restaurants are going to be tested by the panoply of demands that a global gathering like the Olympics brings. London is superbly placed to take these demands in its stride.

Closing Remarks
When the IOC met in Singapore three years ago, they took a long, shrewd look at London. They saw the vibrancy, the youthfulness and the diversity which is epitomised in Brent. They saw not just that people from every part of the world had come to stay in London, but that people from every part of the world are at home in thriving communities like this one. It is a model for the world and is the reason the Olympic Games are coming to London. We have the people who live side by side in communities like this to thank for attracting the Games to London. Now, through initiatives like Wembley Works, we need to ensure all those who live and work here receive the benefits that Wembley stadium and the Olympics will bring.

The new Wembley is going to be a proud beacon for football long into the 21st century. And Wembley City will provide jobs, homes and opportunities far beyond the 2012 games.

Thanks for all the hard work in bringing Wembley this far. Let’s work together for the success of Wembley City, for everyone who lives and works here, and for success which will endure for many years to come.

Thank you.