Youth Unemployment

Edward Timpson Excerpts

Wednesday 16th February 2011 Commons Chamber

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

This is a very important debate, and it is a shame to see the Government Benches so empty, not least because the number of unemployment claimants in Stoke-on-Trent Central was more than 250 higher in January 2011 than in December 2010. The good work done by the Labour Government in stopping unemployment, preventing youth unemployment and preventing the worst of the recession is being steadily undone. That was the Labour vision—helping the least well-off through the toughest times. Now we face the morass of a noblesse oblige, laissez-faire big society model that will do little for my constituents.

Part of the Labour approach was the future jobs fund, which secured training and work for young people and slashed long-term ingrained unemployment. Many of my colleagues have spoken very effectively of how well the scheme has worked in their constituencies, and I can say the same of my constituency and the broader north Staffordshire area. The north Staffordshire future jobs fund put hundreds of people into work across Stoke-on-Trent, Newcastle-under-Lyme and Staffordshire Moorlands.

A good example was to be found at Epic Housing, a housing association in Bentilee in my constituency, a tough part of Stoke-on-Trent with ingrained problems of worklessness. Epic looks after 900 homes in the Bentilee area and put 26 people through the scheme, 10 of whom now have permanent jobs—six with Bentilee Environmental Services and Training and four with the parent firm, Epic. Malcolm Burdon, the social enterprise team leader—something that I believe the Government are in favour of—said:

“In six months, the lads go from sitting at home watching Jeremy Kyle to getting up in the morning and coming into work. It makes them disciplined.”

I have nothing against Jeremy Kyle personally, but I am in favour of work and the discipline and pride that come with it, which I used to think the Conservative party believed in.

The future jobs fund has worked not just in Bentilee but in Abbey Green, and it has attacked a culture of worklessness in some tough communities in the city. It is important for my city because Stoke-on-Trent is now on an economic journey, which the Labour Government were helping. It lost its traditional industries, the pits and the pots. Mrs Thatcher did for the mining industry, globalisation did for the steel industry and mechanisation put tens of thousands out of work in the ceramics trade. We are now on a journey of retraining, reskilling, education and attacking worklessness. The collapse of those industries ingrained a culture of worklessness in many communities. People still had the idea that they could go to work in those traditional sectors without needing education and training, and when those jobs went, so too did a culture of workfulness. That filtered down the generations and there was a problem with getting people to work.

The current generation cannot go into the jobs of their fathers and forefathers. As the hon. Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds) said, we cannot make T-shirts cheaper than China, nor can we make ceramics cheaper than China in many instances, or steel. We therefore need to train people and give them skills, but we also need to get them back into a culture of work, and that was partly what the future jobs fund was about. My hon. Friend the Member for North Ayrshire and Arran (Katy Clark) explained very well how the fund got into communities and got people back into the culture that they needed.

The real problem with the attack on the future jobs fund is that it forms part of a triple whammy attack by the Government on young people. We had the withdrawal of the education maintenance allowance, which had allowed many people to make the transition to education and learning, which is very important in a city such as mine. We then had the rank stupidity of the teaching budget for universities being slashed by 80%, thereby imposing a £9,000 charge on tuition fees. We should not think for a minute that not all the good universities in the UK will seek to charge £9,000. That leaves many of us wondering what on earth the Government have against young people.

When those moves are combined with an economic policy of cutting too far and too fast, we see that the Government do not have a policy for growth. They have a policy that looks after the banks and supermarkets but slashes business investment.

[Mr Edward Timpson (Crewe and Nantwich) (Con)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Tristram Hunt]

I would be delighted to give way to a fellow north Staffordshire Member.

[Mr Timpson]

Cheshire, actually, but I know we are fairly close to each other. You’ll get to know the geography fairly soon.

Will the hon. Gentleman take this opportunity to enlighten us on his party’s policy for growth?