Youth Unemployment

Debate between Lord Grayling and Tristram Hunt

Wednesday 16th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

I think that the right hon. Gentleman should listen to his right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead, who said in 2006 that youth unemployment was worse than when Labour took power, and it carried on getting worse after that. By the time of last year’s general election, youth unemployment was still 270,000 higher than it had been in 1997, and still they remained in denial—they remain in denial to this day. The greatest brass neck of all was that two months ago the previous Prime Minister had the effrontery to claim:

“Tragically Britain is entering yet another decade of youth unemployment.”

Just what does the Labour party think had been happening for the past 10 years when it was in government?

Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman also does not remember that during the last disastrous years of the Labour Government he was Chief Secretary to the Treasury. For those who do not know, that is the person in Government responsible for keeping spending under control. It was not we who built up the biggest peacetime deficit this country has ever known, but him. What did he do to stop his Prime Minister promising to spend money he did not have and making promises to the unemployed that he could not keep? Of course, there was the notorious letter to his successor:

“Dear Chief Secretary, I’m afraid to tell you there is no money. Kind regards and good luck!”

What characterised the period that he and his colleagues have so conveniently forgotten is that the Labour party spent more and more money and made less and less difference. It is no wonder amnesia has set in.

[Tristram Hunt (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab)]

Will the Minister explain why the Conservative party committed itself to the previous Government’s spending plans when in opposition?