Youth Unemployment and Bank Bonuses

Debate between Alec Shelbrooke and David Simpson

Monday 23rd January 2012 Commons Chamber

[Alec Shelbrooke (Elmet and Rothwell) (Con)]

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker; I shall try to keep to four minutes.

I start by echoing what my hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury (John Glen) said. I do not believe that there is anybody in the House who does not want to try to do as much as possible to help the youth unemployed, and I genuinely mean that about all parts of the House. It is easy to score cheap political points, but deep down, I think that there is probably no one in this House, on either side, for whom that is not true. We feel this to be such an important issue for many of the reasons that have been outlined today.

I will come to why I think the motion is not helpful in solving the problem, but let me say that no matter how we approach the issue, everyone wants to do something about it. That is the nature of party politics: the Opposition have a different approach to those of us in government. When I look around at the unemployed young people in my constituency, I think about how to help them. Equally, I have met young people on apprenticeships—16-year-olds—and seen the difference that being able to go out has made to their lives. There are children whom I have known over many years who have got an apprenticeship and who now go out to work. One sees them visibly maturing before one’s eyes, becoming more confident in themselves and thinking about what it means to get a career and move along that path. However, the flip side of the coin is the children and young people who have not been able to get an apprenticeship or get those jobs. We think, “Well, for every high there must a low,” and we worry deeply about the effect that that will have on young people. But is it fair to offer them false hope by suggesting that taxing bankers’ bonuses could create jobs for them?

I worry about the message that we send out from this place, because there is nothing worse than false hope. We have seen so many examples of it in the history of politics. During elections, people vote for something that they believe will give them x, y or z, only to be bitterly disappointed later. It is also easy for the Opposition to make promises—I mean this not as a comment on the Labour party but as a general remark—when the reality of changing circumstances means that those promises cannot be fulfilled. Another good example is that, following the austerity Budget, we were hoping to reduce the structural deficit by the end of this Parliament, but because of the changes in the world economy since then, it does not look as though we will achieve that until 2016 or possibly 2017.

[David Simpson (Upper Bann) (DUP)]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that a further way in which the coalition could help small to medium-sized businesses would be to reduce the heavy burden of bureaucracy that they have to deal with? A further area in which they could be helped is that of energy costs.

[Alec Shelbrooke]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. Bureaucracy has strangled small businesses over the past 13 years and made it almost impossible for the people running them to say, “Let’s go out and employ a few people. Let’s take a punt on it and see what happens. Let’s grow our business and see whether we can grow the economy.” If they tried to do that but did not succeed, the bureaucracy meant that it was very hard for them to scale back the business afterwards. I believe in protection for workers—I think we all do—but there has to be a reality check at some point. Just keeping people employed because of bureaucracy while watching a company go bust does not serve anybody.

That is why the Government have adopted a programme of tackling bureaucracy and some of the more nonsensical parts of the health and safety at work legislation. I have talked to the local businesses in my constituency and found that they have hired, on average, one full-time equivalent employee to deal with the increase in bureaucracy. That is not job creation; that is sapping the resources from a company that might be willing to go a step further.

I am exceptionally worried about creating false hope. My hon. Friend the Member for Rossendale and Darwen (Jake Berry) made it quite clear how many promises have been made about a bankers’ bonus tax, including the suggestion that such a tax would create 100,000 jobs. Bankers are already paying 50% tax on those bonuses. Do I personally agree that the head of RBS should be getting the size of bonus that he is getting when its share price has halved? No, I do not, but I did not draw up his agreement and I do not know what the small print says. I do not know why he feels entitled to take that bonus. Do I think it right that he should do so? No, I do not, but we are not legally in a position to do anything about it. We have to look at the position that we have got ourselves into, and try not to make those mistakes again.

I do not want to get back into the same old hoo-hahs that we have across the Chamber on these issues. We see the same old faces on the other side, and we all have a history, in these ding-dongs, of talking about whether the austerity measures are working and what would happen if we did not do what we are doing. Whenever we introduce a policy to try to rebalance the economy, there will be a negative effect. There is a recession throughout Europe and the world, and growth is practically flat across the whole of the European Union. We have to do something about that. This Government are trying to do something. They are trying to invest in apprenticeships, for example. Their apprenticeship scheme has the advantage over the jobs scheme introduced by the previous Government in that it involves the private sector rather than the public sector. I hope that we can bring hope to the young unemployed in this country, without a false dawn.