Youth Unemployment and Bank Bonuses

Alison Seabeck Excerpts

Monday 23rd January 2012 Commons Chamber

[Danny Alexander]

I have visited companies around the country, in Scotland and England, that have created a significant number of new jobs and new apprenticeships, providing a significant increase in skills. That is the right way to go about it, and that is what we are trying to do with the increase in apprenticeships. I hope that the hon. Lady will welcome that. It is fair to say that the apprenticeships programme and the youth contract complement our Work programme, which is the biggest payment-by-results employment programme that this country has ever seen. The Work programme will provide personalised support to around 2.4 million people over the next five years, helping those most at risk of long-term unemployment.

[Alison Seabeck (Plymouth, Moor View) (Lab)]

In Plymouth we are dependent on the public sector, and we are also a garrison town. As a result of the Government’s defence decisions, we are seeing a lot of young men, in particular, losing their positions in the services and becoming unemployed. Those coming out of the services are relatively highly skilled, putting pressure on the few vacancies that we have in Plymouth and cutting long-term unemployed young people out of the market. We have seen a 96% increase in the number of the long-term unemployed in Plymouth. What will this Government’s policies do for those young people? Absolutely nothing in Plymouth.

[Danny Alexander]

The youth contract, which I have mentioned, along with the Work programme and many other things that we are doing, will help the young people in the hon. Lady’s constituency, and I very much sympathise with the position that she has described.