Youth Employment

Debate between Chloe Smith and Guy Opperman

Tuesday 15th July 2014 Westminster Hall

[Chloe Smith]

I certainly agree with my hon. Friend on that point. He has helpfully set up the point about co-operation that I wish to emphasise in this debate.

Our national youth unemployment rate has hovered under 20% for much of the last four years; if we look across Europe, we see that our young people are significantly better off than, for example, those in Spain, where about half of young people cannot find work. They are also better off than those in Uganda, where I have just had the privilege of meeting young leaders from nine countries through the Democrat Union of Africa. I learned there that youth unemployment in Uganda is the highest in Africa; the African Development Bank says that it could be as high as 83%. Uganda also has the world’s largest percentage of young people under 30, at 78% of the entire population.

Youth unemployment is a blight for any nation, but most of all it is a blight on every young person who has a hope, a dream and something to offer. Those are not numbers; they are real people. It is a sapping experience to seek work and not get it. Unemployment is a crying shame for those who want to put education to good use and an appalling burden for those who want to work hard and get on without falling back on benefits.

[Guy Opperman (Hexham) (Con)]

I was one of the first MPs to hire, train and retain an apprentice. Does my hon. Friend agree that that is a good way we can make an individual difference? Does she also agree that the statistics show that, for example, every single one of the 29 constituencies in the north-east shows an increase in the number of apprenticeship starts compared with the year 2010? The minimum rise is 60%; the maximum, in Bishop Auckland, is 143%.

[Chloe Smith]

I welcome those figures. My hon. Friend does well to point out how important apprenticeships are, and I congratulate him on offering one to a young person.

National policy, which the Minister will set out in more detail, ranges across the radical expansion of apprenticeships to the package of measures under the Youth Contract, which include incentives for employers to take on young people. Many organisations in the third sector also contribute enormously to encouraging young people throughout the country, some by means of formal contracts with the state. Campaign groups such as The Found Generation add to that. The Found Generation is youth-led and aims to tackle Britain’s youth unemployment and prevent a lost generation. It has recently published a report entitled “Practical Solutions to UK Youth Unemployment”, which I commend to hon. Members.

I will also mention briefly a couple of commissions with which I am involved. I chair the National Youth Agency’s commission into youth and enterprise, which is currently researching and surveying how we can all back young people to start out on their own.

Alcohol Taxation

Debate between Chloe Smith and Guy Opperman

Wednesday 14th December 2011 Westminster Hall

[Miss Smith]

I am aware of that specific point, and I am sure that my hon. Friend and his colleagues will be even more aware of that tonight at the all-party parliamentary beer group’s Christmas party, if I have that correct. If he will forgive me, I will focus on minimum unit pricing in this debate, to deal with points raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Totnes. I shall briefly note that she raised the wider impacts of alcohol. Of course, it is not just the duty system that is important. I direct her to the Police Reform and Social Responsibility Act 2011, which I hope will help with the late-night economy. To make an important point, I direct her to a forthcoming paper from the Department of Health, which, with the Home Office, is responsible for this area, that will consider the wider social and health impacts of alcohol. I have no doubt that she will look at that in some detail.

[Guy Opperman]

A simple question: when assessing taxation in the alcohol strategy document, working with the Department of Health, will there be a difference in the views on taxing supermarket sales compared with the pubs that we all cherish and that are so affected by this?

[Miss Smith]

If my hon. Friend will allow me to come to that, I shall attempt now briefly to answer a number of the questions asked. First, as my hon. Friend the Member for Totnes explained, the Scottish Government have recently introduced a Bill that seeks to bring in a 45p per unit minimum price. She asked why this Government believe that that would be incompatible with EU law, when the Scottish Government do not. If I may quote the specific point: we believe that it could be incompatible with article 34 of the treaty of the functioning of the European Union. I should be delighted to go into more detail on that if she required. That is the position.

I should like to deal with the important point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Hexham (Guy Opperman). No one wishes to hit pubs unnecessarily. I take the examples about the behaviour of supermarkets that have been given. Like hon. Members, I am wary of those. If an indirect tax were introduced, it would be difficult to distinguish between points of sale. I am happy to come back to hon. Members in more detail on why that is difficult, but it is not as straightforward as saying that we want to hit supermarkets and not pubs; it is about how to set up an indirect tax.

On that note, as hon. Members will have heard in other debates, it is difficult to find ways to vary VAT on similar products. Again, I am happy to come back with more detail on that if required. On price distortion and perhaps distasteful practices at the border, the UK Government will look into that closely. My hon. Friend the Member for Totnes asked whether we will discuss matters with the Scottish Government. We will be watching the situation extremely closely in the service of seeing what works and what we can assess among these complex policy and legal issues.

I will go briefly to a couple of other questions that my hon. Friend asked me: have we received representations from public health representatives on the duty plus VAT measure? I regard that measure as a starting point, as a first step. She rightly notes that it introduces a principle and a starting point. Treasury officials are very closely involved in discussing such matters with the Department of Health and, as I have already mentioned, the Home Office, which is also responsible in part for alcohol. I hope that reassures her.

We have mentioned supermarkets. I shall briefly turn to whether a windfall profit tax could be introduced as a method of trying to tackle some of the harms. First, this is about evidence. It is questionable whether windfall profits are likely to arise, and therefore whether there would be something to tax, as a viable approach. That question rests on carefully analysing the evidence, policy and legal issues and what is possible.

Finally, I hope that I have set out that the Government have taken some action and made some starting points. The Government are keen to hear evidence on the matter and will observe carefully what is going on in Scotland and elsewhere.

Question put and agreed to.