Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Helen Hayes and Greg Hands

Tuesday 7th June 2016 Commons Chamber

[Nick Thomas-Symonds (Torfaen) (Lab)]

4. What steps he is taking to ensure that young people are not disproportionately affected by reductions in government expenditure.

[The Chief Secretary to the Treasury (Greg Hands)]

The Government have a long-term economic plan designed to help young people, which includes 3 million new apprenticeship starts, a 10-year low in youth unemployment, the lifetime individual savings account to help first-time buyers, 360,000 16-year-olds doing National Citizen Service and record numbers going to university.

[Helen Hayes]

The Chancellor has claimed that the Government

“put the next generation first.”—[Official Report, 16 March 2016; Vol. 607, c. 951.]

However, the Equality and Human Rights Commission’s “Is Britain Fairer?” report, which was published last year, found that younger people in the UK faced the worst economic prospects for generations. Young people in my constituency are bearing a disproportionate burden of the Government’s cuts. The abolition of the education maintenance allowance has made it harder for 16 and 17-year-olds to pursue educational opportunities; university tuition fees have trebled and are set to rise again; changes to the schools funding formula will see—