Youth Unemployment

Lord Reid of Cardowan Excerpts

Tuesday 24th March 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Reid of Cardowan (Lab)]

My Lords, I first welcome this Statement. It is not only important but long overdue in the face of the facts the Minister gave, including the fact she confirmed that take-up of apprenticeships has fallen by 40% over the last decade. If we are going to address that issue, I urge her to avoid what has been suggested is a binary choice between government assistance and the market. A modern economy requires both. Yes, they have to be balanced, but it is a nonsense to argue that somehow, if we left everything up to the market, then that would solve the problems. That is patently not true; there is about 300 years of evidence to disprove it. I therefore ask the Minister to expand on how the assistance to small and medium-sized enterprises will help them to employ people and thus address the problem of NEETs—young people not in education, employment or training—because that is the kernel of the issue that the country faces.

[Baroness Sherlock (Lab)]

I am very grateful to my noble friend; he makes a really important point. It just is not helpful to anyone if we start getting caught in false binaries. We need to work with the grain of what employers need and support them in doing it. They want to hire whoever is best for the job. Our job as a Government in this sort of setting is to work out what it will take to help those young people who most need the help to be the person the employer needs, by getting them the skills they need, getting them in the right place and getting them work experience.

The reason why we have the particular incentive of £2,000 for SMEs to take on 16 to 24 year-old apprentices as new employees is because we know they face additional barriers and costs. We also know that the sector is likely to take on young apprentices. Apprenticeships have spread very wide, and many are prone to taking on young apprentices. We want to lean into the grain of what they naturally do anyway, take away some of the barriers they face in doing that and support them in doing what they want to do anyway, which is good for them, good for the young person and good for the economy.