Youth Unemployment

Lincoln Jopp Excerpts

Tuesday 17th March 2026 Commons Chamber

[Pat McFadden]

My hon. Friend makes the very important point that a significant proportion of the 1 million young people not in education, employment or training are not claiming benefits at all, and not signing on for standard universal credit or the health element.

One way in which we want to reach those young people is through the expansion of our youth hub programme, which gives them a chance to come into a place—often a sports or community institution—and get a range of help on the health front, the housing front and the work-finding front, because young people do not live their lives according to Whitehall departmental boundaries, and why should they? It is up to us to tailor the help to the way they live their lives, and get it to them in the places where they want to be.

[Lincoln Jopp (Spelthorne) (Con)]

A couple of weeks ago, I hosted a student roundtable, with two pupils from my eight secondary schools and two from my further education college. I agree with the Secretary of State in that I was left incredibly excited for them and by their hopes and aspirations for the future. However, we also had a discussion about how AI-proof those plans were. His statement mentioned short AI courses, and he also talked about the urgency. Can he tell us how short these short courses will be, who is going to deliver them and how the young people of Spelthorne will sign up to them?

[Pat McFadden]

These short courses or apprenticeship units are something that employers have called for. Until now the minimum length of time for an apprenticeship has usually been eight or 12 months, or something like that, but these can be for a matter of weeks. We will publish more information about them as soon as we can. The sectors, including AI, in which the first wave have been announced are all sectors in which we will need the skills of young people. We are trying to adapt the training offer that we fund to the needs of employers, and one way to do that is with more short courses.