Youth Unemployment

Baroness Wheatcroft Excerpts

Monday 7th April 2014 Lords Chamber

[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.

[Baroness Wheatcroft (Con)]

My Lords, I recently visited the Hammersmith Jobcentre Plus. I recommend it to all noble Lords, and not only if they are looking for jobs. It was a delight to see that under one roof one could get help with housing, drug and education problems as well as with jobs—and, of course, the first three are important in finding jobs. Does the Minister agree that this holistic approach is paying dividends?