Youth Unemployment
Debate between Lord McCabe and Iain Wright(13 years, 8 months ago)
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Steve McCabe
Yes. I welcome any initiative that is designed to help people to be better prepared for work and to help young people to get that first foot on the work ladder. I absolutely agree with the hon. Gentleman on that point.
Mr Iain Wright (Hartlepool) (Lab)
I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate, which is very important. His experience in Wolverhampton in the 1980s is very similar to my experience in Hartlepool in the 1980s. Following the two previous interventions, does he agree that the cancellation of the education maintenance allowance is a detrimental step in helping people to stay on in education? In addition, the abolition of the future jobs fund, which helped scores of people in my constituency and elsewhere, will also stop interventions that help young people gain work experience, which is so vital for their future careers.
Steve McCabe
I feel quite strongly that, so far, what we have seen from the Government is the cancellation of initiatives. I hope that during this debate we might hear something about a fresh initiative. However, I personally think that the wrong time to withdraw support is when we are in the depths of a recession and youth unemployment is rising. That is patently wrong.
I am not alone in expressing my concern about youth unemployment. The CBI has recently voiced its concerns about the rising trend of youth unemployment, a trend that it fears. There are about 31,000 more young people chasing work now than there were last summer. Youth unemployment is hovering around the 1 million mark. That means that one in five of our young people are without work, which is an awful lot of talent and potential for any country to write off.