Young People not in Work, Education or Training
Debate between Lord Palmer of Childs Hill and Baroness Smith of Malvern(1 week ago)
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Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
The noble Lord makes an important point. It is absolutely the case that children who are absent for periods of time, or who are in alternative provision by virtue of behavioural needs, are more likely not to be in education, employment or training. That is why, as part of this plan, we will have a particular focus on those children, to identify much earlier who is likely not to be able to find a college place or job, and to intervene at that point to prevent them becoming NEET in the first place.
Lord Palmer of Childs Hill (LD)
My Lords, I welcome the Minister’s comments, but this is very much a top-down approach to getting young people back into work. Can she give further assurance on how the Government will encourage tradespeople—the plumbers, electricians, brickies and others—to take on people as apprentices and trainees? This starts at the bottom. This does not start with all the courses that young people can do part-time; they have to be employed by a plumber, a builder or an electrician. What are the Government doing about it?
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
I am sure that the noble Lord will therefore welcome the announcement that we also made today of fully funding small and medium-sized businesses to take on apprentices. These are the businesses that are more likely to take on young people, including disadvantaged young people, and they are being supported by this Government. That will help to turn around the 40% decline in young people starting apprenticeships over the past 10 years.
Youth Unemployment
Debate between Lord Palmer of Childs Hill and Baroness Smith of Malvern(1 month, 4 weeks ago)
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Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
My noble friend is absolutely right that the opportunities that young people have throughout their lives are dependent on the standards, quality and success that they experience in schools. That is why we have already taken action to ensure that new routes are available for young people post-16—for example, through foundation apprenticeships—and why we have increased the support available to young people in colleges to get the qualifications in English and maths that are so important for them later in life. It is also why, through both Becky Francis’s curriculum and assessment review and the Government’s post-16 skills and education White Paper, we will have more to say about how we ensure that there are clear, successful routes for all our young people post-16.
Lord Palmer of Childs Hill (LD)
My Lords, I am disappointed to hear the Minister, in discussing youth unemployment, mention universal credit and other such things. I ask the Minister to consider whether—as I would have thought—one of the basic ways of reducing youth unemployment is to encourage and introduce more apprentices. If only we had people who were encouraged financially by the Government in plumbing, electrical work and all the trades that people need; instead, we are using people from overseas because we are not training anyone. Are the Government giving financial incentives to the plumbers, electricians and so on to train the tradespeople for the future?