Youth Unemployment

Maria Miller Excerpts

Wednesday 16th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Maria Miller)]

I thank Opposition Members for giving us the chance today to debate the record of the previous Labour Government. It has been a lively debate, which is perhaps unsurprising, given that the record of Labour is so fresh and bears the fingerprints of the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Mr Byrne), who opened the debate for the Opposition. I shall deal first with his contribution, which was a master-class in the selective use of statistics.

Let me clear up one or two of the right hon. Gentleman’s statements. He asserted that redundancies are going up. In fact, redundancies are unchanged in the past quarter, at 145,000—less than half the level during the recession—and the number of people on JSA is 20,000 lower than at the election. The number of unfilled vacancies has risen by 40,000 this quarter to 500,000—the sorts of new jobs that can make a real difference in people’s lives.

The right hon. Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms) called for action, and that is what we as a coalition Government are delivering. The Government are determined to make a difference to the lives of young people, which means tackling the root causes of unemployment, not just dealing with the symptoms. That is why we are supporting a host of new measures, including work clubs, Work Together, enterprise clubs and the new enterprise allowance, to help unemployed people move off benefits and into self-employment.

We are getting the Prince’s Trust into jobcentres so that we can help build volunteering partnerships. That is why, for young people in particular, we are developing a far more flexible back-to-work model that gives Jobcentre Plus managers the freedom to work with them and help them get the support that in the past has been lacking. We are also launching a new work experience programme to get young people into the habits of work, with two to eight-week placements targeting hard-to-help groups. We are putting 18 to 24-year-olds who have not succeeded in finding a job after nine months into the Work programme, with early entry for the most disadvantaged.

We have heard a host of contributions today and I would like to pick up on one or two of the themes that have been mentioned. The hon. Member for Barnsley East (Michael Dugher) made an important contribution when he said that jobs play a pivotal role in our lives, and I wholeheartedly agree. He will therefore be as angry as we on this side of the House are that youth unemployment grew by 270,000 under Labour’s stewardship. I hope he can support the programmes that the Government have put forward to address the issues.

[Sheila Gilmore (Edinburgh East) (Lab)]

Will the Minister give way?

[Maria Miller]

I will not, if the hon. Lady will forgive me, because we are very short of time.

My hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock (Jackie Doyle-Price) talked about the importance of employability, which did not always come through in Opposition Members’ contributions. She outlined the importance of recognising the need to localise support for young people and, in particular, to involve local employers in imaginative thinking to try to unlock the potential of our youth. That theme was echoed by my hon. Friends the Members for Enfield North (Nick de Bois) and for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds), both of whom bring important experience to the debate as employers. My hon. Friend the Member for Enfield North talked about the importance of permanent and sustainable jobs and about Labour’s failure to deliver a long-term, sustainable strategy for youth unemployment. By focusing on that broader element of the debate, he brought in the perspective of the employer.

My hon. Friend the Member for East Hampshire talked about the productivity gap that we see all too often in the market, a skills gap that the previous Government simply did not address, and the importance of education in ensuring that young people are skilled up for the future job market. My hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff Central (Jenny Willott) made an important point in the debate, as did Opposition Members later, about the importance of ensuring that the most vulnerable get the support they need to get into employment. I can assure her that, through my work as the Minister with responsibility for disabled people, and by pressing forward with Work Choice, we will ensure that the Work programme is supplemented by particularly specialist support in that area.

The hon. Member for North Ayrshire and Arran (Katy Clark), who is no longer in her place, made some important points on apprenticeships. Indeed, I think she said that she would have liked her party to have gone further on apprenticeships. I can assure her that where Labour did not go, we will go. I hope that she will support us in that.

[Albert Owen]

Will the Minister give way?

[Maria Miller]

If the hon. Gentleman will forgive me, I will not give way, because we have a lot to get through.

It is important to use apprenticeships in the public sector to transfer skills into the private sector. At the heart of the debate—this is the point that Labour Members were trying to bring out—is the role of the future jobs fund. We heard an impassioned speech from the hon. Member for Wansbeck (Ian Lavery), who made sure that the House listened to his contribution, but I must set one or two of his facts straight. He asserted many points in his contribution, some of which have already been refuted by colleagues. Just to make sure that he is clear, the coalition Government did not abolish the future jobs fund; 75,000 people have started on a future jobs fund job, and that figure will rise to more than 100,000 in the coming weeks. We have honoured all future jobs fund commitments. I hope that reassures the hon. Gentleman: we will make sure that young people in his constituency continue to receive the support to which he referred.

The hon. Members for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Tristram Hunt) and for Wirral South (Alison McGovern) raised a number of issues, particularly on the importance of inter-generational worklessness—something that Government Members feel was not tackled properly under 13 years of Labour. On the importance of re-establishing the culture of work, I am sure that their constituents would not support a scheme—the future jobs fund—that leaves half the young people whom it was designed to support on benefits seven months after they started on it. That is not the sort of success that anybody would like to see for young people today.

My hon. Friend the Member for Nuneaton (Mr Jones) could not have put it better: it feels today as if Labour has been trying to create a smokescreen to hide its true record of failure. Today, we have heard again about Labour’s legacy of failure: a failure to tackle the root causes of youth unemployment, with the number of people in youth unemployment when they left office 270,000 higher than when they entered, and a legacy that they tried to fix with a catalogue of short-termist schemes that seemed to owe more to managing unemployment figures and creating headlines than to trying to provide for the long-term futures of the young people whom we represent.

Let us be clear: the future jobs fund has not delivered, and it does not deliver the long-term opportunities that we, as constituency Members, want. The undeniable fact is that about half of those who went into the future jobs fund were back in the unemployment queues seven months later. The right hon. Member for East Ham called for action, and that is exactly what the coalition Government are delivering. In contrast to Labour, we are focusing on long-term skills.

[Sheila Gilmore]

Is it not the case that youth unemployment fell below 700,000 only at the very end of the period 1992 to 1997? It did not rise above 700,000 again until 2007, when the recession came. So if we are comparing records, will the hon. Lady please get the record straight?

[Maria Miller]

I will absolutely get the record straight for the hon. Lady. It is very simple. She may give the House a lot of stats, but I will give one stat back to her: 270,000 more young people on unemployment benefits at the end of Labour’s 13 years in government than at the start. That is the fact that matters.

In contrast—

[Chris Ruane]

Will the Minister give way?

--- Later in debate ---

[Maria Miller]

If the hon. Gentleman will forgive me, I will not, because I have two minutes in which to finish.

In contrast, we are focusing on long-term skills and sustainable jobs for young people—a real future for the people whom we represent. There will be 50,000 extra apprenticeships this year, at about half the cost of future jobs fund placements, and we will deliver skills that will last a lifetime. The Work programme will provide personalised support that has never been seen before in this country—caring for the individual and caring for individual needs.

There will be work experience opportunities for young people and voluntary opportunities that make the difference, with people getting that first step on the employment ladder and that first job. There will also be a new universal credit that supports young people into work and does not trap them in a lifetime of welfare dependency and underachievement.

Labour spent £4 billion on its new deal projects, much of which was aimed at young people, but we saw unemployment among young people going up. That is a national disgrace. The real change is happening right now. We are not wasting any time. We are giving the young people of Britain the support that they need to reach their potential and to get the experience and training that they need for long-term job opportunities. We are going to set people up for life with the skills that they need.

This is not the time to turn back to Labour’s failed policies of the past 13 years. I urge hon. Members across the House to reject the Opposition motion and to support a more positive future for Britain.

Question put.