Yvette Cooper
Main Page: Yvette Cooper (Labour - Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford)Department Debates - View all Yvette Cooper's debates with the HM Treasury
(3 years, 9 months ago)
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Rishi Sunak
The Culture Secretary is working through the detail of how the money will be distributed, so I direct my hon. Friend to him on the precise question she raises. I would say that it is important that that funding is not just for our crown-jewel assets, famous and important as they are, but will benefit the local cultural institutions in all our communities across the country.
Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)
Having introduced the future jobs fund and the wider youth job guarantee as Work and Pensions Secretary in 2009, and having been appalled when they were cancelled a year later under the coalition, I very much welcome the reintroduction of those measures now. The Chancellor will know that speedy delivery is crucial, and the scheme will have to be bigger because the crisis is bigger. We achieved it last time by involving local councils, working with the local private sector and third sector, to deliver jobs speedily. We could do that again. Will he confirm whether this is a job or training guarantee for every young person, as we had last time? If so, from which month will the guarantee apply?
Rishi Sunak
The right hon. Lady knows this area well, and I enjoyed reading of and learning from some of the things she did at that time. In terms of a guarantee, what we have put in place is a comprehensive suite of interventions. She will know from the evidence that we want to encourage young people into work or some kind of work-based training. In the hierarchy of interventions, that should come first. However, we do have a classroom-based offer. She will have heard me talk about increased funding for level 2 and 3 training for school leavers especially, if they cannot avail themselves of traineeships, sector-based work academies or other interventions. More broadly, I would be very happy to sit down with her to get her advice and thoughts on how we can ensure that the kick-start scheme is as successful as it can be.