Gregory Campbell
Main Page: Gregory Campbell (Democratic Unionist Party - East Londonderry)Department Debates - View all Gregory Campbell's debates with the HM Treasury
(11 years, 3 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Greg Clark
My hon. Friend is right. It is important that we make sure that our young people have the skills available, and the expansion of the apprenticeship programme is a key feature of that. It is important to send the right message to young people, which is that there is a 90% chance that a young person who joins the jobseeker’s allowance scheme will have a job within a year, and a 60% chance that they will have a job within three months. It is very important that that message gets out and that young people should not be demoralised by the Labour party.
Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)
In parts of the United Kingdom that are highly dependent on the public sector, such as Northern Ireland, does the Minister agree that we need to maximise the private sector to ensure that the hard core of young people who are unemployed get into skills and training programmes so that when jobs become available they are best placed to get them?
Greg Clark
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. What he says for Northern Ireland applies to the rest of the country as well, and that is what we are pursuing with our policies.