Youth Unemployment

Baroness McDonagh Excerpts

Monday 7th April 2014 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness McDonagh]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what action they have taken to tackle youth unemployment.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Lord Freud) (Con)]

The Government provide support to young people through Jobcentre Plus as well as through the youth contract and the Work Programme. Our approach continues to work. The youth claimant count has fallen for the 21st consecutive month.

[Baroness McDonagh (Lab)]

Why then has long-term youth unemployment doubled since 2010 and why, according to a recent Local Government Association study, were 40% of young people underemployed? Does the Minister agree that the Conservative Party has form on this? It is what it did in the 1980s, causing long-term generational unemployment with catastrophic social and economic consequences, only now it is being aided and abetted by the Lib Dems.

[Lord Freud]

There is a great deal of confusion about long-term youth unemployment. The actual figures, rather than the fantasy figures made up on the opposite Benches, show that before the coalition came to power long-term youth unemployment had doubled. Since then, that increase has slowed and the figure has now started to fall—it was down 38,000 this quarter and 59,000 this past year—and the long-term count has fallen for the 12th consecutive month. Those are the unemployment figures. One of the sources of the confusion is the JSA claimant count for long-term youth unemployment. The reason for that confusion is that the previous Government hid long-term unemployment by introducing training allowances, which took people off. So those figures are distorted. The right figures, which show the underlying position, are the ILO unemployment figures which I have just given.