Youth Unemployment

Ben Obese-Jecty Excerpts

Tuesday 17th March 2026 Commons Chamber

[Pat McFadden]

I think employers want to do the right thing—they want to give young people a chance. My hon. Friend asks whether the incentives can be stacked, and the answer is yes. For example, if a small or medium-sized enterprise wants to take on a young apprentice who has been unemployed and on universal credit for six months or more, it can claim both the £2,000 apprenticeship incentive and the £3,000 hiring bonus. That sends a strong signal to business, and it is why the Federation of Small Businesses has called this a game-changer, just as my hon. Friend did. It sends a strong signal about giving young people a chance, which is exactly what I think small and medium-sized businesses want to do.

[Ben Obese-Jecty (Huntingdon) (Con)]

I was lucky enough to get my first job when I was 16—washing up in a kitchen as well as working in a warehouse—which taught me some really good life skills about what it is like to be employed and the responsibilities that come with that. From speaking to businesses in my constituency, I know that those opportunities simply do not exist for young people at the moment. Being paid a bung to hire young people will not help, because the problem is the huge impact of business rates, national insurance contributions and the minimum wage on their ability to retain the staff they have. They are having to lay off those staff because they simply cannot afford to keep them on. Knowing full well that I will clip this and put it on social media, what will the Secretary of State say to businesses in my constituency to show them that he is listening to those concerns and will address them, rather than putting on a sticking plaster, as this package surely does?

[Pat McFadden]

The hon. Member mentioned his career in washing up, and let me tell him that we have that in common, because one of my first jobs was as a dishwasher in what I believe was Scotland’s first Mexican restaurant, Viva Mexico. I inherited that job from the current First Minister of Scotland, John Swinney, the previous dishwasher in that restaurant, so we can be the three founding members of a national union of dishwashers.

The hon. Member asked for my message to employers in his constituency. It is to look at this package and avail themselves of the support in it—hiring bonuses for young unemployed people, specific help for small and medium-sized enterprises when hiring a young apprentice, and foundation apprentices for retail and hospitality industries. All those things should be good for the small businesses, particularly those in the hospitality sector, in his constituency.