Oral Answers to Questions

Liam Byrne Excerpts

Monday 24th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Duncan Smith]

We are talking a lot to employers about that problem. My hon. Friend is right about it. I return to the answer that I gave my hon. Friend the Member for Central Devon (Mel Stride) about ending the training scheme. That really affected 16 to 17-year-olds. I have brought in the £30 million innovation fund to look at ways in which we can give people approaching the age of 16 better skills for the work force. Employers have told us that many people who leave school at that age are simply not ready for work. We have allowed jobcentres to work with many of those people to get them ready for work. My hon. Friend the Member for Lincoln (Karl MᶜCartney) is absolutely right that this matter is a priority for us.

[Mr Liam Byrne (Birmingham, Hodge Hill) (Lab)]

Youth unemployment is now the highest it has ever been. Does the Secretary of State agree with the Chancellor that Britain is now “a safe haven”?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I am not quite sure what the right hon. Gentleman’s linkage is in that question. Youth unemployment is high now, which is deeply regrettable, but he needs to take some responsibility for that. We have to remember that when we came into power, after a period of growth before the recession, the level of youth unemployment was higher under the last Government than the level that they inherited back in 1997. Frankly, his lectures on youth unemployment are like crocodile tears in the desert.

[Mr Byrne]

Since this Government have taken office, they have closed the future jobs fund and shut down the flexible new deal, and replaced them with a youth work scheme that costs less than the Department spends on stationery and guarantees interviews, not jobs, and with a Work programme that turns out on closer inspection to be all programme and no work. Meanwhile, youth unemployment is going through the roof.

I looked for the Department’s flagship youth unemployment policy on its website this morning, and what does it say?

“Page not found. The page you are looking for may have been removed or moved to the National Archives.”

So much for the priority that the Government gave to youth employment.

The last time unemployment was this high, it was not the hon. Member for Altrincham and Sale West (Mr Brady) who was trying to bring down the Government over Europe but the Secretary of State himself, the commander-in-chief of the Maastricht rebels. Instead of today’s debate, on which the Prime Minister has wasted so much time, should we not be having a debate about how we put a proper tax on bankers’ bonuses to get 100,000 young people back to work?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I must say, the right hon. Gentleman coming up with the wrong page suggests more about his ability to negotiate the website than about the Department.

I repeat to the right hon. Gentleman what I said before: it is time the Opposition took responsibility for the mess that they got us in before we took over. Since we walked through the door we have had in place work clubs, work experience, apprenticeship offers, sector-based work academies, the innovation fund, European social fund support, the skills offer, the access to apprenticeships programme, Work Together, the Work programme, Work Choice, mandatory work activity and Jobcentre Plus. He has to recognise that under Labour’s watch, youth unemployment rose to a level higher than that at which they found it in 1997. It was a disgrace.