Youth Unemployment

Gregg McClymont Excerpts

Wednesday 16th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Gregg McClymont (Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East) (Lab)]

Scrapping the future jobs fund is a false economy for this country, because in saving a relatively modest sum in the short term the Government are recklessly running up much greater costs for society in the long term. Those greater costs will come from poor mental and physical health, to which persistent worklessness is linked, and which will have a long-term impact on the NHS and other social services. There will also be greater costs for the economy. A whole generation of people will be unskilled and unequipped for work. That will be a much greater cost for the economy because if we do not provide these young people with the right skills and experience during the downturn, we will lack the human capital to take advantage of the recovery down the line.

The future jobs fund was a serious response to the crisis of joblessness. At its heart was the guarantee of paid work for those who have been unemployed for more than six months. Underpinning it was the economic rationale that investment in jobs now would prevent a repeat of the lost generation of the 1980s. I was amused earlier today to hear the Prime Minister describe the Work programme as the biggest back-to-work programme since the 1930s. That is not much of an achievement, because there were no back-to-work programmes worth the name in the 1930s.

The analogy with the 1930s does hold in the following respect however. In the 1930s we had a Tory-led coalition presiding over mass unemployment. The unemployed were concentrated in the same areas that face the biggest challenges in creating jobs now. When the unemployed marched to London from Jarrow and elsewhere, the Government told them, “Sorry, but we can’t help you as the financial markets won’t wear it.” Does that sound familiar?

The FJF was a creative response to a crisis of youth joblessness. Its abolition is to be regretted for a number of reasons. It is a tragedy for young people in my constituency, which has 13 people chasing every vacancy according to the most recent figures, and it is a tragedy for the country. Unless we invest now in these young people, we will not be able to reap the benefits of the recovery which will flow at some stage down the line. Investment is necessary now. Not investing in these young people is a false economy.