Unemployment: Young People

Lord Martin of Springburn Excerpts

Thursday 20th June 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Freud]

My Lords, the blunt explanation for that is that we have a welfare system that traps people in inactivity and makes it very difficult for them to pick up some of the jobs that other people find it easy to take. That is why we are reforming the welfare system root and branch, in particular why we are bringing in the universal credit, which will get rid of that trapping effect of our benefit system.

[Lord Martin of Springburn]

In the coming year, will more young people be taken on as apprentices in the Government’s apprentice scheme?

[Lord Freud]

My Lords, one of the recommendations of the Wolf report, which, as noble Lord’s will remember, I am very enthusiastic about, is to underpin the importance of apprenticeships and vocational training. In the latest year for which I have a record, 2011-12, we had more than half a million apprenticeships—520,000. That is up 86% on the two years before. Clearly this is one of the most important ways in which to get youth back into the workforce in a sustainable way, and it is something that we are pursuing aggressively.