Finance Bill

Debate between Alison McGovern and Rushanara Ali

Tuesday 3rd July 2012 Commons Chamber

[Rushanara Ali]

They do not deserve a cut in taxes. I hope the Government will take serious action, otherwise the public, who already feel this way, will rightly believe that this Government are not for them but for the vested interests and the millionaires who make so much money and are not willing to pay their dues or to make the appropriate contribution. I am sure the Government do not want to be on the side of people who are milking the system and making so much money and not making the appropriate contribution.

I call on the Government to pay attention, to listen not just to my party, but to the millions of young people who want a job and an opportunity to make a contribution to this country. We have a plan that could help get them get into real work and would reward those who work hard—a plan that is costed and paid for by asking some of the wealthiest in our society to contribute just a little more. With the economy back in a double-dip recession and economic confidence so low that investment growth has virtually ground to a halt, job opportunities for these young people desperate to find work will not appear without help. I hope the Government will see sense and give young people in Britain the much-needed support that they deserve, by supporting the new clause.

[Alison McGovern]

I would like to begin my remarks on new clause 13 by agreeing with much of what has been said today by Opposition colleagues. I want briefly to take the House back a couple of years to 2010, when I was lucky enough to secure an Adjournment debate on young people and unemployment, the first such debate I led in the House. For me, it could not have been on a more important subject than the position of young people in the labour market in my constituency. I do not wish to put myself forward as some kind of Cassandra or some awful foreseer of what has come about, but I warned the Minister then that the swift withdrawal of some of the more successful things the Labour Government had been doing to tackle young people’s unemployment would lead to more young people being on the dole. Sadly, that is what has happened. In fact, two years later the ONS tells us that an extra 65,000 16 to 24-year-olds are now without work. That is not just a waste of talent and funds, but a moral shame.

I want to say a few words on that subject and why new clause 13 is so important to young people facing that difficult situation. The Government have had two years to tackle the problem, yet all of us here have to admit that the problem is getting worse, not better, and that action is needed more today than it was in 2010. The Government would not listen then; I beg them to listen now.