Oral Answers to Questions

Marcus Jones Excerpts

Monday 5th March 2012 Commons Chamber

[Maria Miller]

The hon. Gentleman will already be aware that if students fall ill they are eligible for student finance for up to 60 days—I am sure that he will have advised his constituent of that. I can assure him that as PIP is developed and we consider the issue further, we will be talking to colleagues in other Departments. The important thing is that we have the right support in place for long-term sick and disabled students.

[Mr Marcus Jones (Nuneaton) (Con)]

4. What effect he expects the Government’s youth contract to have on the number of unemployed young people.

[Mark Menzies (Fylde) (Con)]

16. What effect he expects the Government’s youth contract to have on the number of unemployed young people.

[The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Chris Grayling)]

We are in the final stages of preparing for the launch of the youth contract in April. We believe that it will have a positive impact on youth unemployment, providing nearly half a million support opportunities for young people. We and employers are working together to give young people the support they need to gain employment.

[Mr Jones]

At a meeting with business people in my constituency some months ago, there were calls for a small tax break, or some other form of support from the Government, to help them take on young people. I am therefore delighted that 160,000 job subsidies worth up to £2,275 will now be available for each business that employs an 18 to 24-year-old through the Work programme. Can the Minister comment on the level of interest in the scheme so far?

[Chris Grayling]

There is already considerable interest in what is planned, and I hope that it will give unemployed young people a leg-up in the workplace. We hope that the challenge that they face owing to a lack of previous experience—which we were talking about earlier—will be ameliorated, at least to some degree, by the incentive payment that we will provide, and that the result will be far more young people getting their first opportunity to get into work.