Oral Answers to Questions

Andrew Gwynne Excerpts

Wednesday 9th November 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. If you do not have credibility about your plans to deal with your debts and deal with your deficits, whether you like the markets or not, they will not lend you any money. That is what we are seeing in countries like Greece and now, tragically, in Italy, where the price of borrowing money is reaching a totally unsustainable level. It is a lesson for all of us to have sustainable plans to get on top of our debt and our deficits. In terms of Europe, the problem of contagion is that as we agree a decisive write-down of Greek debt, people inevitably start asking questions about other countries. As that happens, you need to have in place the biggest possible firewall. That is what the European Financial Stability Facility is all about, and eurozone leaders urgently need to put flesh on the bones and put figures on the size of that firewall, to stop this contagion going any further.

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)]

Q15. Last year youth unemployment in Tameside stood at an unacceptable 20%—one in five. Today it stands at 34%, which is shocking. In light of that, does the Prime Minister still believe that the decision to scrap the future jobs fund was the right one?

[The Prime Minister]

Let me just make the point that under Labour youth unemployment went up by 40%—and the evidence that we received on coming into government was that the future jobs fund was three or four times more expensive than other job creation schemes. Indeed, in many parts of the country, including in the west midlands, the percentage of future jobs fund jobs that were in the private sector was as low as 2% or 3%. It was right to scrap the future jobs fund and put in its place apprenticeships, the Work programme and work experience that will make a difference to young people.