Youth Unemployment

Lord Austin of Dudley Excerpts

Wednesday 9th November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

Local partnerships are immensely important, and now the Work programme providers have complete freedom to forge partnerships that will make a genuine difference.

The third element of our strategy is apprenticeships. Over the past 12 months, we have launched 100,000 new apprenticeships. I believe that more apprenticeships are now available in this country than ever before. We have many apprenticeships that are targeted at young people. The previous Government’s track record on apprenticeships was, as usual, full of rhetoric but lacking in delivery. They repeatedly made promises for an overall number of apprenticeships, and they repeatedly failed to deliver what they promised. We are hitting targets for apprenticeships. That is the first time in a long time that that has happened, and I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Minister for Further Education, Skills and Lifelong Learning for that.

[Ian Austin (Dudley North) (Lab)]

How many of these apprenticeships are reserved for 18 to 24-year-olds?

[Chris Grayling]

In the Budget, we announced an additional 40,000 apprenticeships targeted at the young unemployed, and the overall number of young people under the age of 24 on apprenticeships is greater than the total number of apprenticeships that were available under the previous Government. My hon. Friend will walk us through the details of that when he concludes the debate; this is very much his baby, and he should take credit for what he has achieved.

I might also mention the support we are providing for the short-term young unemployed through the work experience scheme, our sector-based work academies and the work being done through Jobcentre Plus. The Work programme is the biggest ever welfare-to-work programme of its kind in the country. We have the biggest payment-by-results scheme in the world, offering tailored, personalised support to help young people actually get into work right now. There is the opportunity to move through into an apprenticeship, which is an appropriate path into work for many young people. Never before has this scale of apprenticeships been provided in this country.

I believe these measures represent a coherent strategy to deal with a problem that was left behind by the previous Government, and that has been made more challenging by a difficult set of international circumstances. Unlike the previous Government with their failures, we are determined to tackle this problem, and to succeed.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister for Further Education, Skills and Lifelong Learning (Mr John Hayes)]

How could we not be moved by what the hon. Member for Hartlepool (Mr Wright), my hon. Friends the Members for Blackpool North and Cleveleys (Paul Maynard) and for Aberconwy (Guto Bebb), and the hon. Members for North West Durham (Pat Glass) and for Wansbeck (Ian Lavery) said about the plight of young people in their constituencies? Let there be no dispute about this: there is no denial and there is no complacency. [Interruption.] Of course this matters to all hon. Members in this House, and it ill befits Opposition Members to suggest that they have a monopoly on care.

[Ian Austin]

Will the Minister give way?

[Mr Hayes]

I will not give way.

Hearing Labour Members talk about generational joblessness reminded me of the plight that my father and my grandfather suffered in the ’30s when they were jobless. The story now, as we have heard from Members across the House, is no less tragic than it was then. That is why the Government are doing something about it.

All hon. Members who have spoken in the debate must be disappointed by the motion. Like worn-out conjuror’s paraphernalia, it is all smoke and mirrors. It resembles the economic policy that the last Government practised when the shadow Chancellor was their senior economic adviser, and we all know where that led. It led to the point at which the shadow Secretary of State, who introduced this debate, left his famous letter saying “There’s no money left”. We can see the shadow Chancellor’s footprints and fingerprints all over the motion.