Summer Jobs

Debate between Dave Doogan and Jonathan Davies

Tuesday 7th July 2026 Commons Chamber

[Jonathan Davies]

I thank the hon. Member for her intervention. My focus is on the people of Mid Derbyshire, but I am sure that the people of Clacton will hold their representative to account in the appropriate way.

Of the young people who responded to my survey, 44% said that the cost of living was the biggest issue they faced, followed by housing and renting costs at 34% and employment and jobs at 33%. I want to read just one contribution from a constituent, which I found to be particularly profound. They said:

“Life for young people especially isn’t just unaffordable—it feels completely unattainable. I’ve had a job for nearly 5 years and am on the minimum wage. There is no way, with the state of the housing market and general cost to live that I’d be able to sustain moving out, renting or even learning to drive/buying a car. My independence seems—and I imagine it does for a lot of young people—like it will never fully arrive.”

That was mirrored in the fact that a great many of the young people who engaged with my survey were not optimistic about their futures. That is a moral and political tragedy.

[Dave Doogan]

Looking to the future, a job vacancy has just come up in Clacton. It would be good to know whether the Labour party will be putting forward somebody of a youthful nature as its candidate. To get back to the core issue of the debate, the Minister, in his meandering rebuttal to the motion from His Majesty’s Opposition, talked about a £1 million fund to help people aged 16 to 24 get back into work. That would be £1.50 per unemployed person aged 16 to 24. If the Government applied that money just to the 109,000 extra unemployed young people over the past 12 months, it would not even be a tenner. Does the hon. Gentleman think that would make much of a difference?

[Jonathan Davies]

I spent most of the hon. Gentleman’s intervention trying to find out what is going on in Clacton, but perhaps the Minister heard what he said and will furnish him with a response in his summing up.

The Government are doing a great many good things to support young people. There is more to do, but I will touch on some of the things we are doing. We have an unemployment rate of 4.9%. That is far too high, but we are outperforming many other major economies, including Canada and the EU. I particularly welcome the youth guarantee, the growth and skills levy and the other levers that we are introducing to reduce business costs, including on energy. We are expanding access to finance through the British Business Bank, and we are reducing red tape and licensing costs.

On summer jobs, it is particularly important to highlight our support for hospitality, including cutting business rates for pubs and live music venues by 15%, which will be followed by a two-year freeze. We are also increasing the hospitality support fund to £10 million, which will really help those sectors.

We have heard a little bit from the Opposition Benches today about wage increases and national insurance. On wage increases, when I go to food banks I often meet young people who are in work but tell me that they are still not making ends meet, and that point comes through from the survey that I did. That really is a tragedy. While I acknowledge the concerns that businesses have raised with me and that the Opposition have raised today, I do welcome the wage increases. We have to deal with this cost of living crisis. Young people should not be working as many hours as they can yet still not able to get by.

The point about national insurance is quite interesting. The decision to increase employer national insurance was a difficult one. I would rather we had not had to do make that decision, but we did. Public services were failing so badly that that in itself was a brake on the economy. I note that the previous Government also effectively tried to increase national insurance by 1.25% in 2021. That was called the health and social care levy, but they did row back on it.

The reality is that we have a long-term problem with public services, and it is holding back people’s lives and the economy. We have grasped the nettle on that, but I hope that sometime later in this Parliament we can revisit the issue. We stood by businesses in covid, and we are asking them to stand with us now as we rebuild public services. As the economy continues to grow, I hope that that option is on the table for the Government.

There are a few things that I would like the Minister to bear in mind going forward. I very much welcome the Great British summer savings scheme, which offers VAT cuts to the visitor economy sector, which is a very important employer of young people, including in Derbyshire. Once that scheme ends, I would be grateful if a review could be undertaken to see how much economic growth and how many jobs it generated. My long-term aspiration is for us to be in a place where we can offer a VAT cut, particularly for the hospitality sector.

After the financial crisis in 2008, the previous Labour Government cut VAT to 15%—it was subsequently put up to 20% when the Conservatives came in—and that was a real shot in the arm for the economy. If the Great British summer savings scheme shows evidence of being a real driver for economic growth, particularly in the important visitor economy sector that employs a lot of young people, we should see whether we can harness that and offer a different rate of VAT for the visitor economy and hospitality sectors. I believe that that would be good for the economy. It would also be good for our high streets and people’s sense of place and wellbeing.