Youth Unemployment

Roger Gale Excerpts

Wednesday 28th January 2026 Commons Chamber

[Dame Diana Johnson]

My hon. Friend is exactly right. That is the kind of initiative that will help deliver for these young people who are out of work, particularly with health problems, health conditions and disabilities.

I think all of us in the House would recognise how disheartening it can be for young people who are looking for work who cannot find that opportunity. They may not have the confidence or knowledge to apply for the jobs that are out there. Let us put ourselves in the shoes of an 18-year-old who has perhaps lost their way a little bit and does not have the confidence; it can be difficult for them to go into a jobcentre to find out what opportunities are available. That is why, as part of the youth guarantee, we are expanding the DWP youth hubs located in places such as football clubs and other sports facilities to more than 350 areas across Great Britain. I accept that youth hubs were part of the previous Government’s plans to deal with youth unemployment, but they were small in number. We are expanding them to 350.

Youth hubs are helping people such as Erin, a young woman who was unemployed for two years and struggling with her motivation. After visiting a youth hub based at Crystal Palace football club, she was able to complete a work placement before being offered a permanent job. That came off the back of joining a hospitality programme, which gave her valuable experience and confidence. It goes to show what young people can achieve when they are motivated, confident and have that self-belief. That is why the expansion of youth hubs forms just one part of our wider youth guarantee, which is designed to make sure that no young person is left behind.

[Sir Roger Gale (Herne Bay and Sandwich) (Con)]

In East Kent, there is a company called HatHats, which runs coffee bars. The proprietor philanthropically employs hard-to-employ young people. In the last 12 months for which figures are available, the profit on all 25 of its outlets was £12. As a direct result of this Government’s policies, those young people are losing out on the opportunities that the Minister is describing.

[Dame Diana Johnson]

I will come on to talk a little about some of the accusations levelled at the Government in relation to national insurance contributions, so I shall deal with that point later in my speech, if I may.

The youth hubs will offer a helping hand, whether with writing a CV or with obtaining a work placement to include on a CV. We have announced that over the next three years, we will invest £820 million to support almost 900,000 young people who are on universal credit and looking for work. There will be new dedicated work support sessions, followed by intensive, tailored assistance to help those young people secure the right job, training or learning opportunity. We are backing that up by funding about 300,000 more opportunities for people to gain work experience and training in sectors such as construction and hospitality.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Roger Gale (Herne Bay and Sandwich) (Con)]

I will be very brief, Madam Deputy Speaker. In her remarks earlier, the hon. Member for Gillingham and Rainham (Naushabah Khan), who is a Kent Member of Parliament, rightly praised the work of MidKent College and the training in construction trades that it is offering young people. I will add my praise for the work of the east Kent colleges, which is in a similar vein—they are also doing a tremendous job under quite difficult circumstances. However, there is little point in offering that training in skills, only to see disappointment at the end of it because the opportunities have gone. When a young man or young woman trains as an electrician, plumber or bricklayer, they expect to then go on to earn money in a job as an electrician, plumber or bricklayer. As my hon. Friend the shadow Secretary of State knows, people in the construction trades in east Kent are being laid off. House building is grinding to a halt, houses are not selling and the market is flat. That is all as a result of the Government’s fiscal policies.

In towns in my constituency such as Herne Bay, Sandwich, Birchington-on-Sea and Westgate-on-Sea, many of the jobs are hospitality-based. They are either directly in hospitality—pubs, restaurants and small hotels—or they are dependent upon the visitors that those businesses attract, such as the seaside amusement arcades and Dreamland in Margate. All these businesses are dependent on people having money to spend to be able to employ staff. Those staff are not being taken on, and those staff are the young people. I may be getting on a bit, but I can remember my first job washing up in a restaurant in Stratford-upon-Avon. I needed to earn some money, and I was able to walk in and do it, and that is not happening now. Businesses are laying off staff, rather than taking them on.

As my right hon. Friend the Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds) said earlier, it is young people who are not being employed. Why? It is a direct result of the fiscal policies of this Government. Directly or indirectly, it is national insurance, business rates, the cost of inputs and the cost of electricity. People cannot run a restaurant or a pub without heating and lighting or food to put on the table. There are pubs closing in my constituency. A couple of weeks ago, I heard of another. A lovely riverside pub, the Dog and Duck, in a place bizarrely known as Plucks Gutter, has shut. The young couple who were running it—they had a splendid summer season—found that business crashed at the end of the summer. They could not afford to pay the staff along with paying for the rates, the food, the electricity and everything else that goes with running a good little riverside pub, so it has gone. Please God, it will come back again, but that couple have had to retrench, and they put their heart and soul into it.

It is no good. We do not want a sticking plaster, and we do not want schemes. We do not want to be told, “Yes, you can do this and you can do that. There are these opportunities.” These young people—soon it will be my grandchildren—want jobs. They want the dignity of being able to go out, to do a hard day’s work, whether that is washing up in a café, picking fruit in an orchard or whatever, and to get a pay packet at the end of it that they have earned and can spend as they want. That is the dignity of employment, and that is what I fear this Government are denying them.