Employment: Young People

Baroness Sherlock Excerpts

Wednesday 5th February 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Freud]

My Lords, I could not agree more with my noble friend. There are only four things one can do to help youngsters into the workforce: directly get them a job; training and education; apprenticeships; or work experience, which is a stepping stone. That is what Alison Wolf told us, and that is what the Government are aiming to do.

[Baroness Sherlock (Lab)]

My Lords, I think the Minister said that the Government inherited high long-term youth unemployment from the Opposition. However, the ONS publication Labour Market Statistics shows that long-term unemployment for 18-24 year-olds is 232,000. The same data set shows that in the period spanning the last election it was only 188,000. Labour has made it very clear that we would guarantee a job for every young person out of work for more than a year and make them take it. What will the Government do?

[Lord Freud]

My Lords, the figures the noble Baroness quoted are very distorted by the training allowances, which got people off the long-term measure. I will not go into a long song and dance about it, but those figures were the result of a very distorted comparison. I have quoted the real figures—the ones that matter—to this House on a regular basis. When you look at youngsters who are both workless and outside full-time education, that figure rose through the longest boom we have seen in our history because of structural inability to get those youngsters into the workforce. There was neither adequate education nor routes into the workforce. We are turning those figures round—and they are the real figures.