Young People and Work: Milburn Interim Report Debate
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Jack Abbott
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Young People and Work: Milburn Interim Report
Jack Abbott Excerpts(1 day, 22 hours ago)
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Jack Abbott (Ipswich) (Lab/Co-op)
It is a pleasure to serve under you today, Ms McVey. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Wrexham (Andrew Ranger) for securing this important debate.
It is clear that we face an urgent national crisis that has devastating consequences. This is a challenge facing every part of our country. I am pleased to say that the number of NEETs in the east of England has fallen since 2024, from 14.2% to 11.7%. However, that figure is still far too high, and behind it our young people are unable to move forward into the next stage of their lives. People should be building skills, gaining confidence and learning how to stand on their own two feet; instead, they are struggling to take those important first steps into adult life. Alan Milburn is right to warn against the emergence of a lost generation.
This is about more than youth unemployment. It is about being disconnected from the education system and the labour market, but also from the opportunity, confidence and independence that good work can provide. There is a cost to young people’s confidence, health and future earnings. The moral crisis is all too clear. We are at risk of abandoning a generation of talented, ambitious people to worklessness, poor health and poverty.
I want to highlight a few things that we are doing in Ipswich and Suffolk to turn the tide. There is the new youth hub funded by the Government in Ipswich, which brings together employers, training providers, careers advice, mental health support and housing support under one roof. That is incredibly welcome. Sizewell C is a transformational project for our energy security, but there is also what it represents to our young people. I was delighted to secure 500 guaranteed jobs for Ipswich from that project. Construction technical excellence colleges also deliver employability support.
We as a Government must ensure no gap in support between the restart scheme, which has been incredibly successful, and the future employment support programme. When there is an apprenticeship to apply for, skills training to access and a career to build for, ambition has somewhere to go. Young people need the ambition, the potential and the opportunity all at the same time. Behind every headline figure is a young person who wants to contribute. Our responsibility is to make sure that chance is there.