EU: Youth Unemployment (EUC Report)

Baroness Hooper Excerpts

Tuesday 17th June 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hooper (Con)]

My Lords, as a new member of the sub-committee last year, I was pleased to be able to discuss the choice of subject for the latest report and agreed wholeheartedly that the issue of youth unemployment was the one that caused the most concern, affecting the whole of Europe, and that it was vital for all our economies to tackle this issue anew in the wake of the economic crisis. The inquiry has justified this decision. A focus at EU level has been worth while, even though most of the causes and solutions have to be dealt with at local level, country by country and often at regional or local level in each country.

Today’s debate has also underlined the importance of the issue as well as the extent of the problem. I agree with much of what has already been said. The process of preparing the report has been fascinating. I, too, congratulate my noble friend the chairman on the way that she outlined the background to the report and the main facts and conveyed the flavour of the discussions and debates that took place in the committee as a result of the many excellent sessions when we took evidence from a wide variety of witnesses. I also thank the committee clerks and our expert for their support and advice. I am glad that my noble friend Lord Shipley and the noble Baroness, Lady Uddin, who were not members of the committee, feel that the report is sufficiently comprehensive and wide ranging. I hope that it will make a valuable contribution to illuminating thinking on the problem.

I wish to focus on two aspects. The first is the use and relevance of European Union funding. I draw attention to chapter 3, paragraph 48, which points out:

“EU funds are limited in comparison with the scale of the crisis”.

It therefore seems that it is of the utmost importance that funds are used effectively and efficiently, not to subsidise existing national approaches and national funding but to try something new and then to evaluate it in the way that we recommend in paragraph 52. Criticisms are sometimes made about the system for obtaining Brussels funding. There certainly are defects in the system, which is complex and slow. Much of this we can control ourselves, as applications for European Union funding, whether made by national or regional bodies or by the voluntary sector, start in this country. My experience as a Member of the European Parliament was helped by the fact that in those days we had single-member constituencies. Mine was Liverpool. The committee made a useful site visit to Liverpool, which has been referred to. It is detailed in appendix 4. My experience dates back to the establishment of the Social Fund in the early 1980s. There was an active voluntary sector in Liverpool—remember, this was just after the Toxteth riots—and I was already in contact with many organisations. There was also severe youth unemployment. It was before the noble Lord, Lord Clinton-Davis, did his stint at the European Commission. In fact the noble Lord, Lord Richard, was then looking after Social Fund issues. I was able to set up seminars, conferences and teach-ins which explained how to go about obtaining funding from the then new Social Fund. This was especially relevant for the voluntary sector. The result was that Liverpool projects received well over 50% of all the funding available to the whole country. Things have changed since then, but that proves the importance of the role of local bodies and decentralisation and that if people are well informed about how to deal with these applications, they can go ahead and achieve things. European Union funding may be available, but if we do not claim it, we will not get it.

The other area of the report which I wish to underline is skills mismatch and careers advice. On the former, the statistics have already been quoted by my noble friend Lady O’Cathain. She also emphasised the extent of the problem. Chapter 5 covers the ground very clearly. However, a number of our witnesses commented on the poor quality of careers advice at schools and universities. Indeed, my noble friend Lord Liverpool has just made a valuable contribution on this. It has always been a concern of mine. I attended a recent meeting in the City of London at which the issue of youth unemployment was raised as a major concern for the leading companies that were represented there. They also pinpointed the need for better careers advice as part of a solution. The role of school governors was discussed, and it was felt that more could and should be done to encourage business and industry to become more involved. In this context, it was suggested that middle management, as well as governors, could act as mentors to encourage school leavers to consider careers of which their careers advice teacher might have no experience. It was even suggested that this could form part of the key performance indicators programme, which struck me as a good idea.

The whole issue struck a chord with me because the Education Reform Act 1988—which, as the then Lords Education Minister, I took through your Lordships’ House—was the legislation which first encouraged business and industry to become more involved in the governance of their local schools and universities. Clearly, legislation alone is not enough and there is a need to persevere in encouraging this to happen so that young people have contact with and advice from potential employers in their area. It is also important to be aware of what other European Union countries are doing to tackle unemployment and to share good practice. To be able to do this is an important element and benefit of our membership of the European Union.

For the many other matters that I would wish to refer to, I feel that I must leave the report to speak for itself. I commend it to your Lordships.