Youth Unemployment and Bank Bonuses

Graham Stuart Excerpts

Monday 23rd January 2012 Commons Chamber

[Rachel Reeves]

People are not getting jobs at the moment not because they do not have skills but because the jobs are not available. In all our constituencies, five or 10 people are chasing every job. That is why unemployment is rising. Until the Government take responsibility for that, the numbers will get worse, not better.

The price that families struggling with the consequences of redundancy and young people forced to abandon their career plans pay is incalculable. We cannot go on like that. Maybe some hon. Members—we have already heard from many of them—greet the prospect of rising unemployment with a degree of fatalism, perhaps resignation. They may feel that the punishment being inflicted on innocent families and young people is the sad but inevitable consequence of austerity and economic adjustment. Indeed, as I said earlier, there is a grim familiarity about the figures, which bear a depressing resemblance to the record of previous Conservative Governments.

[Mr Graham Stuart (Beverley and Holderness) (Con)]

The hon. Lady talks about a grim familiarity. Does she acknowledge that every Labour Government in history ended with higher unemployment than they started with? After a 40% rise in youth unemployment under the previous Government, some humility is required on both sides of the House, but not least on hers.

[Rachel Reeves]

Unemployment has reached 3 million twice, both times under Conservative Governments. At the last election, unemployment was falling; today, it is rising.

[Mr Stuart]

That is because we are clearing up your mess.

[Rachel Reeves]

In the 1980s and early 1990s, unemployment reached 3 million. Was that because Conservative Governments were clearing up a Labour mess? Really? I think it was because of the policies that Conservative Governments always pursue—policies that hurt young people and put more people out of work. That is the reality of Conservative Governments.

Labour Members are not complacent. We do not say that it is inevitable, that it has got to happen and that 3 million unemployed is a price worth paying. Labour Members are not prepared to give up on young people and we urge the Government not to give up on them, either.

In the coalition agreement, the Government said that a fundamental goal would be to

“sustain the recovery and to protect jobs.”

Before the election, the Prime Minister told voters that jobs would be his top priority. He said:

“I understand if you leave people unemployed, and short term unemployment becomes long term, then it becomes a lifetime of unemployment. It’s a waste of life. I must stop it happening.”

He was right then, but he does nothing now. The Deputy Prime Minister said earlier this month that

“supporting people into work is my priority for 2012”.

He is right, yet he does nothing.

We must—and we will—hold the Government to their promises because we cannot allow the next generation to be denied the chance of expanded opportunities that has always been the promise of Britain.