Youth Unemployment and Bank Bonuses

Debate between Toby Perkins and Danny Alexander

Monday 23rd January 2012 Commons Chamber

[Danny Alexander]

Hold on. I will give way to the former Foreign Secretary, but let me make just a little progress.

We are already providing more apprenticeship places than any previous Government, with an increase of 400,000 in the last year and a commitment to 1.2 million over the entire spending review period. That is at least 250,000 more than the previous Government’s commitment, although the shadow Chief Secretary seems to oppose that increase. As announced in the autumn statement, we are also launching a new £1 billion youth contract to help get young people into work, so that they can learn a trade and get equipped for their future career. Starting this spring, the youth contract will support up to 500,000 young people into education and employment opportunities. The youth contract wage subsidy is targeted at employers in the private sector, creating sustainable private sector jobs for the long term.

[Toby Perkins]

The Chief Secretary talks about the previous Government’s record, but I feel as if I am listening to a broken record, because when we are here to debate a motion about this Government’s policies, all we hear is him harking back to the last Government. Will he come up with something constructive about what he is going to do for the millions of people who are unemployed and looking to him for some guidance?

[Danny Alexander]

I fear that the hon. Gentleman was planning his question so carefully that he did not listen to my remarks about apprenticeships or the youth contract, which is a vast improvement on the wasteful future jobs fund, which offered subsidies almost three times as high as the youth contract and funded too many temporary jobs in the public sector. In fact, almost 50% of participants in that scheme were claiming benefits again within eight months of starting a future jobs fund job.

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[Danny Alexander]

I cannot give the hon. Lady that information—[Hon. Members: “Ah!”] I welcome her to her place and congratulate her on her election. In due course the Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions, my right hon. Friend the Member for Epsom and Ewell (Chris Grayling) will provide that information. I can tell her, however, that Work programme providers are making a difference across the country, helping people to come off all sorts of benefits and acquire the necessary skills and support to get back into work.

[Toby Perkins]

rose—

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[Toby Perkins]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Danny Alexander]

No, I will not.

I mentioned the Financial Policy Committee of the Bank of England and its comments. That is why the FSA will scrutinise all proposed bonuses to make sure that they are not paid at the expense of rebuilding capital. There has already been some progress, with levels of bonus payment down significantly. Hon. Members should consider how far they have fallen. When the shadow Chancellor was a City Minister in the Treasury, bonus levels were £11.6 billion, whereas last year they were almost half that, at £6.7 billion. We fully expect them to fall further this year.

Comprehensive Spending Review

Debate between Toby Perkins and Danny Alexander

Thursday 28th October 2010 Commons Chamber

[Danny Alexander]

I do not accept that analysis, and I will come to that point later. The hon. Lady should be aware that her party’s plans were for £44 billion-worth of cuts, which would have had an impact on people too. Many of the things that we have done, such as uprating the state pension in line with earnings and protecting the national health service, which her party would not have done, support women.

[Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)]

The right hon. Gentleman is perpetuating the myth that there is no alternative, but he just said that the previous Government had a strategy in place for paying off the deficit, so there is an alternative. An alternative was also put forward in 1945. He can take whichever direction he likes, but he cannot keep claiming that the decisions he is making are the only alternative, because others have been put forward.

[Danny Alexander]

No alternatives have been put forward by the hon. Gentleman’s Front Benchers; perhaps he wants to talk to them about that.

Public Spending

Debate between Toby Perkins and Danny Alexander

Thursday 17th June 2010 Commons Chamber

[Danny Alexander]

What I know is that according to the Department for Work and Pensions the programme provides poor value for money, and that the Work programme with which we will replace it next year will give better, more targeted, quicker and more effective support to the people who are most in need. It will do what I hope every Member wants, and help those people to return to work.

[Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)]

In the days when the Liberal Democrats were in a separate party from the Conservatives, did they not say in their campaign that they would not make cuts this year and pull the rug from under the feet of the economic recovery? Did the right hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Mr Clegg) make any representations to the Chief Secretary about Sheffield Forgemasters, and when he stood for election did he make his constituents in Sheffield aware that a vote for the Liberal Democrats would lead to hundreds more people in Sheffield losing their jobs?

[Danny Alexander]

The hon. Gentleman has asked about four questions in one. I will answer the first. As he knows, the risks facing the country have changed over the past few months. Any survey of the evidence across the world suggests that the risks of sovereign debt crises are huge in other countries. That is reflected in the G20 communiqué, which agreed that faster fiscal consolidation was what was needed in major economies. I think that that is right. Only the Labour party is out of step with that international consensus.