Youth Unemployment

Debate between Chris Grayling and Albert Owen

Wednesday 16th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Albert Owen]

I, too, have supported apprenticeships over the past decade, and they have been a great success, but companies in my constituency, and one in particular, say to me that they cannot take on apprentices because they are faced with a consumption tax rise of 2.5 percentage points in VAT. Is that not one reason why businesses are not taking on apprentices? Indeed, the Minister is unable to tell us how many additional apprenticeships there have been in the past eight months.

[Chris Grayling]

Does the hon. Gentleman honestly think that businesses in his constituency would have been better off with a 1 percentage point jobs tax rise, as the previous Administration planned? That would have caused more of an increase in unemployment than anything else the Government could have done.

The right hon. Member made one point, however, which is absolutely right and with which we absolutely agree. Youth unemployment is a major problem for our society and one that absolutely must be tackled. The failure to tackle youth unemployment with schemes that work contributes so much to many other issues that we have to deal with on streets and in neighbourhoods throughout the country.

Endemic worklessness is underpinned by an ever more complex benefits system that traps people in unemployment. Inter-generational poverty is fuelled by welfare dependency, involving generation after generation of people who have not worked. There is a lack of aspiration, especially among young people who lack role models in a country where almost 2 million children are growing up in workless households. Worst of all, the young people who escape welfare dependency and poverty will still carry the economic scars of unemployment for years afterwards, in terms of lower wages and future employment gaps. That is the harsh reality of Labour’s legacy for our young people.