Youth Unemployment

Debate between John Hayes and Ed Balls

Wednesday 9th November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Ed Balls (Morley and Outwood) (Lab/Co-op)]

Does it not tell us everything we need to know that when there is a debate in the House on tax support to create jobs for young people, there is not one Treasury Minister on the Front Bench for the opening and closing speeches? Is that not a matter of great shame for the Government and an embarrassment for the Department for Work and Pensions?

[Mr Hayes]

I offer the shadow Chancellor this, and I do so fraternally: if just occasionally he would temper his belligerent bombast with a degree of humility about the advice he gave the previous Prime Minister and Chancellor, he might manage to stop his reputation flatlining.

The motion shows that the old conjuror has learned no new tricks. Once again, we have profligacy dressed up as prudence. It is public policy transvestism: from a distance, the promise of tax breaks may look alluring; only up close can we make out the underlying 5 o’clock shadow of debt and downturn. That is all the 5 o’clock shadow Cabinet can offer.

Some people think that many of the Opposition Front Benchers have been over-promoted, but I give them a second chance. I have a very small bet at very long odds that there is an outside chance that some of them may make a half-decent job of it.

This Government are acting on apprenticeships. We are acting on the Work programme. We are acting on work experience. We are working on getting people into jobs. That is the difference between this Government and the previous Government. We care too, but we act as well.