Oral Answers to Questions

Iain McKenzie Excerpts

Tuesday 24th April 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hoban]

My hon. Friend makes the important point that the pattern of youth unemployment varies across the country. It is important that the necessary support is in place to help young people looking for work, and the Work programme is likely to help 100,000 young people this year. That is just one of the practical measures we are taking to tackle the problem of youth unemployment—which, as the right hon. Member for South Shields (David Miliband) said, started under the last Labour Government.

[Mr Iain McKenzie (Inverclyde) (Lab)]

With the disgrace of having more than a million young people unemployed up and down this country, does the Minister not now regret scrapping the future jobs fund during the first few months after coming to power?

[Mr Hoban]

It was clear that the future jobs fund was not cost-effective in helping young people, and we have found that the work experience programme is 20 times more effective. We have introduced a range of measures to help young people find work. We have already talked about the increase in the number of apprenticeship places, the number of people being helped by the Work programme and the number of wage incentives in place through the youth contract. We are going to see more voluntary work taking place and more job experience. Those are the practical measures needed to tackle youth unemployment.