Opportunities for the Next Generation

Lilian Greenwood Excerpts

Tuesday 13th September 2011 Commons Chamber

[Esther McVey]

I hear what the hon. Lady says, but I hope she recognises that we are paying £120 million per day on interest payments alone—not a healthy bank balance if it were mine, not that it ever would be.

One of the key things we have to do is focus on what resources we have. There must be a fundamental mind shift on what we are going to do genuinely to help young people, with honesty, truthfulness, and no false hopes or expectations being created. The Opposition are saying, “Too far, too fast”, but I would say to them, “You did too little, too late. You took your eye off the ball locally, nationally and globally, and the disconnect between the youth and what business wants expanded.”

Let me substantiate those comments. Before I came into Parliament, I set up and ran the biggest business women’s network in the north-west, with 9,000 women members. I am honorary president of WIN—Wirral Investment Network—which is for businesses in Wirral. For 10 years, I worked with school children across all platforms and all backgrounds, and wondered what their hopes and aspirations were. We believe in creating opportunities, but the question is how we are going to get there and achieve that. I spent the past three years interviewing the world’s top 100 women from top backgrounds. I asked them, “What did you manage to do and how did you manage to achieve it? What differentiated you from other people?” In helping me with those interviews, they too wanted to help the next generation of young girls in particular.

[Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)]

Last week, my daughter, who is 14 years old and has just gone into year 10, came back from her school and told me that this year it no longer had the funding to arrange work experience for her and her classmates. How is that going to increase opportunities for young women?

[Esther McVey]

I find that hard to believe. I am not sure how that has happened, because under the Department for Work and Pensions we are building and taking forward the biggest programme of work experience and voluntary work.

I asked the women what they had that other people did not have, and they said that in life the great equaliser has to be character and personality traits that will lead to success in individuals, irrespective of their background, connections and schooling. They said that those key things have to come from teaching, at a young age and throughout life, determination, ambition, team playing, trustworthiness, focus, working together, and the realities of life, and that that would be the great equaliser whether someone was the daughter of a baron or a baker.

That is what I want to work on with the Government. I welcome the new university technical colleges that want to expand education and ability—hands-on and mental—and will work with kids who want to do engineering and technical jobs. In Wirral, we are hoping to get one of those for the chemical industries and the built environment. I welcome the notion of free schools and academies that will open up environments and different ways of looking at things that possibly were not there before. I welcome the introduction of the pupil premium worth £430 for every pupil on free school meals. I also welcome the national scholarship programme to help the poorest students. We are also planning 250,000 more apprenticeships than were planned under Labour, which is the biggest ever boost to apprenticeships.

Under Labour—this might be difficult for the Opposition to hear—the gap between the relative chances of poor and rich students to go to university widened, the attainment gap between those at private and comprehensive schools doubled, and in places like Wirral the wealth gap doubled. The life expectancy differential between rich and poor men is now 15 years on the Wirral peninsula. I know that we are all hoping to come together to look at opportunities for the next generation, but we have to live within our means, see what we have got, and have a fundamental mind shift to what businesses want.

I am engaging with the National Youth Theatre, which works with kids from all backgrounds to help them with their dreams, aims and aspirations, and to give them the realities of ambition, hope and desire. In every theatre production, we are saying to 1,000 kids, “You can do it, but life will be tough and it isn’t easy.”

I will finish by mentioning the country’s first ever female to set up a public limited company, Debbie Moore of Pineapple Dance Studios, who has said that “nothing good comes easy”, but that opportunities are out there for everyone, and that in times of economic hardship opportunities are still out there, but it might just be a little tougher.

The Opposition motion is flawed, inaccurate and misleading. For that reason, it needs to be opposed.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Walker]

Absolutely not. I have met young people in my constituency and I have been to my local technical college and explained to my constituents what we are doing to replace it. The people to whom I have spoken have been satisfied with that, however, because they have understood that there will be support in the future.

It is important to consider how to create opportunities. In my maiden speech I noted that some of the steps set out in the Gracious Speech aimed to increase opportunities for young people by supporting businesses that wanted to hire, by increasing the number of apprenticeships and by pursuing vital education reforms. Since then, all three of those themes have been strengthened. In answer to a recent parliamentary question, I discovered that 38 businesses in Worcester—a significantly higher proportion than the average—have successfully registered and benefited from the national insurance holiday scheme to allow them to hire new employees, and earlier this year another parliamentary question revealed that 400 apprenticeships were started between May 2010 and the end of last year. Following the huge success of the 100 in 100 campaign, championed by my excellent local newspaper, the Worcester News, I have no doubt that there will be even more this year.

Apprenticeships are a fantastic pathway to opportunities for young people. I have no compunction about saying that the previous Government were right to start the process of building them up, and I will not pretend that all Conservative Governments in the past have given them the priority that they deserve. However, it is churlish for this Opposition motion to decry the achievements of the Government and the Minister for Further Education, Skills and Lifelong Learning in delivering more. As the Minister for Universities and Science pointed out earlier, the statistics in the motion are based on spin. I welcome the Government’s commitment to fund 360,000 apprenticeships in this financial year alone, and we should all welcome the announcement in this year’s budget of a further 50,000 apprenticeship places and the more recent announcement that the Government are beating their own ambitious targets for apprenticeship starts.

[Lilian Greenwood]

Does the hon. Gentleman not share my concern that even if we do see the apprenticeships that he is talking about, if growth does not return to the economy and if the Government do not do something to stimulate that growth, those people will do their training and then have no jobs to go to?

[Mr Walker]

I totally agree that we need to deliver economic growth. I welcome that intervention, and I will come later to that point and to some of my suggestions for delivering growth.

Just last week the Government announced plans to cut more red tape for apprenticeship providers and businesses. That will be welcomed by businesses in my constituency, which often say that it is fear of the red tape involved that discourages them from supporting the scheme. The hon. Member for West Bromwich West (Mr Bailey) made an important point about how it is a challenge to encourage small businesses to provide apprenticeships. It is a challenge that we must meet, though, and one that I am depressed to see is not mentioned in the Opposition motion. It makes no suggestions for how to deal with red tape.

Businesses in Worcester are taking on apprentices, though—businesses such as Worcester Bosch, Skills for Security, Yamazaki Mazak, Sanctuary Housing, Worcester Community Housing and Tesco. From engineering expertise through to cooking and food safety, retail and administration, young people are learning on the job, and more are doing so as a result of the Government’s determination to strengthen the apprenticeship route. Next Monday I shall host an apprenticeship fair at Worcester’s historic guildhall, to celebrate the successes that have already been achieved and to launch a new challenge for apprenticeship recruitment in the city. It will be aimed specifically at NEETs and will be a celebration of real success and a chance to create new opportunities for the next generation.

It is not through apprenticeships alone, however, that opportunities will be created. Businesses must be supported in hiring and encouraged to invest in their staff and pursue opportunities for growth. Through scrapping Labour’s jobs tax right at the start of this Parliament, the Government did exactly that. Is it enough? Of course we would all like to see more, but is it a step in the right direction? Absolutely it is. We have also supported small business through corporation tax reductions and making the small business rate relief automatic.

We should never underestimate the vital role of SMEs in providing employment and opportunities for young people. The Opposition motion makes little mention of that, but it does mention the regional growth fund, which is already backing opportunity in Worcester through its support for the plans for a Worcester technology park. Once it gets the go-ahead, this project will provide a new home for green technologies in our county and provide thousands of jobs for the next generation. In contrast to the picture of doom and gloom painted by Labour Members, this body, created by the coalition Government, is already providing valuable investment in growth and making a real difference in our communities today.

The Labour party calls for a VAT cut, and for many businesses that might seem like an attractive option, but the best way in which this Government can help business is to provide economic growth and stability. Neither will be possible, however, so long as we labour under a growing deficit and burden of debt.