Youth Employment

Julie Hilling Excerpts

Tuesday 15th July 2014 Westminster Hall

[Julie Hilling (Bolton West) (Lab)]

I am grateful for being called in this debate, Mr Crausby—particularly as I was not here at the start of it, for which I am sorry—to talk for a few minutes about unemployment and the employment of young people.

In a recent survey by the University and College Union of 16 to 24-year-old NEETs—those not in education, employment or training—36% said that they believed that they would never get a job, and 40% that they did not feel part of society; 33% suffered from depression and less than half felt in control of how their life would turn out. Another survey by the Children’s Society said that the unhappiest people are 14 and 15-year-olds. A report from the Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission said that a lack of youth services was failing children and young people in the UK.

Young people often feel very vulnerable and are finding it difficult to not only get into work but even think about being ready for work. We know that unemployment figures for young people are down; however, we have not taken into account the number of young people who are on workfare or are sanctioned.

[Mr Newmark]

The hon. Lady is right that unemployment for young people is down. In her constituency alone, youth unemployment is down by over 40% since the previous election.

[Julie Hilling]

It is interesting that the hon. Gentleman continues to make that sort of intervention whenever a Labour Member is talking about the issues with unemployment. If he listens to what I am about to say, he might learn that I do not believe that the figures are totally true and accurate. As my hon. Friend the Member for Airdrie and Shotts (Pamela Nash) said a short while ago, young people are the group who are sanctioned most, and when they are sanctioned they disappear from the unemployment register. For instance, I have a volunteer working in my office who got so disheartened by sanctions and how he was being treated that he now does not sign on at all because he can no longer cope with the system.

We also have young people on workfare. They are not in employment—they are not getting paid for the work they are doing—but they also disappear from the unemployment figures. The hon. Member for Braintree (Mr Newmark) might be interested to know that in my constituency, any young people signing on for universal credit—that is what is happening for young people in my area now—do not exist in the unemployment figures, because universal credit is not currently connected into those figures. People who want to stand up and say that unemployment is down in my constituency should realise that the figure is not accurate.

I accept that there are more jobs, but one difficulty—I have asked the Secretary of State about this on a number of occasions—is that we do not know the quality of those jobs. We do not know how many involve workfare, zero-hours contracts or unpaid work, and we do not know how many are taken by people who are desperately underemployed and working just a few hours a week when they clearly want full-time jobs.

In the few minutes I have, however, I want to talk about the things we need to do on youth unemployment. One big issue employers and young people talk to me about is the lack of careers education. Where we have cut careers services down to the bare bones, young people do not necessarily get good careers education. The young people I talk to who are in apprenticeships—particularly those working for MBDA, which offers a high-level apprenticeship programme—say they were actively discouraged in their schools from taking up apprenticeships and are not given a full range of information about the jobs on offer. Clearly, therefore, we have a real issue on apprenticeship education.

Work experience should be mandatory. Three out of four employers do not work with young people at all—they do not give them work, work experience or apprenticeships. We need to expand the pool of employers who are prepared to give young people an opportunity. The great value of work experience is that it gives young people a notion of what the workplace is actually like; it encourages them to think about what exams they need to do and what they want to do with their future. Indeed, as a result of work experience, young people sometimes say, “I never want to go into the job I’m doing on work experience.” Work experience therefore often gives young people a rounded view, although I do not think that one or two weeks’ work experience in year 11 is enough; employers should interact much more with education. Some of the best employers in my constituency regularly go into schools and interact with young people; they talk to them about their future and give them a bit of hands-on practice in areas such as engineering.

Another crucial point is support. For 10 years starting in the ’80s, I worked with unemployed young people. We set up a youth co-operative for them, which gave them not only the support they needed, but education and training. Part of that was about young people setting up their own businesses. Not many of those businesses succeeded, but the young people who had attempted to set one up did then find jobs working for somebody else, because they had the experience to do so. Given that 33% of NEETs suffer from depression, we need to see how we can support young people with their education, attitudes and work-readiness. We can build confidence and self-esteem so that they can compete for the jobs that do exist.

I am concerned about the Government’s proposals to introduce fees for the training part of apprenticeships. We are trying to encourage small employers to take on apprentices—that is where the growth in apprenticeships will be—so putting barriers in the way of people taking on apprentices is the wrong thing to do.

I recently held a business event in my constituency. One of the major things employers said was that they wanted apprenticeships to be more responsive to employers, because a one-size-fits-all approach did not really work. They wanted to be much more involved in designing the training that takes place alongside apprenticeships, and to have a say in what happened on apprenticeship programmes for young people.

On the skills agenda, some of the things that have happened in education recently are taking people towards a 1950s and 1960s education agenda. Employers tell me they want young people to do technical subjects. They do not care what the subject is, but they need young people to develop their brains in different ways and to do things more with their hands so that they are ready to take up employment opportunities.

Employers also talk about life skills. They say they need young people to come to them work-ready in many ways. That means young people should have some notion of how the world works, how they fit into the world and how to behave, as well as some notion of financial education and other life skills.

My final point comes back to the issue of connecting employers to education. We need to do far more to enable employers and young people to meet each other and talk about what is going on in the world of work, so that young people can take their place in it.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills (Jo Swinson)]

It is a pleasure, Mr Crausby, to serve under your chairmanship. I appreciate your flexibility in recognising the rather unusual circumstances of this debate, following the change of Minister part way through. I thank hon. Members for their understanding. As the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) said, my hon. Friend the Member for West Suffolk (Matthew Hancock) has been called away to a meeting at No. 10, and I was delighted to step in and respond to this debate.

Youth employment is hugely important to Ministers in the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, as it is to colleagues in the Department for Work and Pensions and across the Government. We need all parts of the Government to work together on the issue and not least with MPs across the House. Many of the contributions I have heard, and those made before I arrived, have been made with the intention of solving some of the issues.

I wholeheartedly congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich North (Chloe Smith) on securing this debate and her important focus on employment rather than unemployment. We want to focus on that because it is the outcome we want to achieve. Her Norwich for Jobs campaign has ensured that there is an improvement in the situation for young people in her constituency. We have heard from many hon. Members about the schemes they have been involved in in their constituencies. The support of constituency MPs is particularly important as, for example, are MPs who have taken on apprentices in their own offices. We have heard a good series of examples of how MPs can make a difference in their own way to the situation in their constituencies.

We heard from hon. Members about schemes and initiatives whereby business people go into schools to offer insights into the world of work and enterprise. That is particularly valuable for young people. We have heard about challenges to people from more deprived areas and backgrounds. It was striking that when I went to the health day at a private school in my constituency, the pool of individuals available included neuroscientists who happened to be the parents of one of the children there, for example. In other areas, it may be more difficult to get a wide variety of people who are personally connected to the school to come in and offer career insights. Programmes such as Inspiring the Future are important in linking people who are happy to give an hour or two of their time once a year to speak about their job to local schools that do not necessarily have those contacts. Just last Friday, I took part in an event in a school in Islington for the Inspiring Women part of that campaign to ensure that young girls have a wide variety of role models presented to them to open up their aspirations.

The hon. Member for Inverclyde (Mr McKenzie) raised the important point about supporting people who do not want to go to university. It is wonderful when people go to university and gain the education it offers, but it is not right for everyone and that is one reason why the Government’s support for apprenticeships has been so important in ensuring genuine options for young people, so they can choose the right path for them. I wholeheartedly agree with him that what matters is employment, not separation. It is a shame that in Scotland over the past couple of years, the Scottish Government have not been able to focus strongly on such issues because they have been distracted by the referendum.

My hon. Friend the Member for Braintree (Mr Newmark) made the important point that almost all young people want to work. It is important to hold on to that in the face of some negative media stories about young people and how they are presented in our society.

My hon. Friend the Member for Redcar (Ian Swales) also mentioned his experience of having an apprentice in his office. His support for the business community in the north-east and providing jobs has been second to none. He will be greatly missed following his decision to stand down from this place, as will his work in supporting jobs in Redcar and the surrounding areas. He was right to raise the issues of employability and skills, and he contrasted the huge appetite for jobs at the crematorium compared with jobs with manufacturers of oil rig equipment.

The Perkins review highlighted the challenges we face in recruiting enough skilled engineers to ensure that our economy can grow in the way we want it to. I understand why my hon. Friend entreated us to become rather more Stalinist regarding the skills we need. I am not sure that is the word I would reach for, but employers have told us that basic skills such as English and maths need to be prioritised. That is why the curriculum is being strengthened and we are ensuring that all young people up to the age of 18 must study maths and English to at least GCSE grade C.

General employability is not just about paper qualifications but perhaps more about attitudes and basic behaviour, such as going to work, turning up promptly and being reliable. Traineeships have been introduced in response to that. They offer high-quality work experience, as well as support with English and maths skills and preparation-for-work training. They help young people who are not quite ready for work to get the experience, confidence and skills they need to be ready. That programme is already growing quickly; more than 7,400 trainees have started since August.

The hon. Member for Airdrie and Shotts (Pamela Nash) asked a variety of questions. She said, importantly, that the approach cannot be one size fits all, because every young person is different and has a different set of challenges to overcome. That is why the range of available initiatives allows people to choose a route specific to the issues they face. We have apprenticeships and wage incentives for people who are already able to work. For those who are close to the labour market, we have the sector-based work academies. There are traineeships for those who want to work but perhaps do not have the experience and qualifications, and there is work experience and training for others.

I agree with the hon. Lady that promoting work experience is important. We already have tens of thousands of work experience, work trial and sector-based work academy places, and of course the traineeships will increase that figure because they include substantial work experience placement. The links between business, employers and schools are hugely important because as well as providing career insights, they can often lead to good-quality work experience placements with local employers and may ultimately lead to work.

The hon. Member for Bolton West (Julie Hilling) made some rather negative remarks about the work experience programme, referring to some of it as workfare. I fundamentally disagree. It is absolutely right, indeed vital, that young people are able to get work experience while they are still being supported by the benefits system, so that they can get into work. That was not handled right under the previous Labour Government—those claiming unemployment benefit or JSA who wanted to increase their skills and get work experience, so that they could get a job, had their benefits stopped. That created a trap that this Government’s commitment to work experience is helping young people out of.

[Julie Hilling]

I do not have a fundamental problem with work experience, but it is really important that it involves some training and is a good experience, and is not just about young people being on workfare and working for benefits to no personal advantage.