Youth Unemployment

Debate between Meg Hillier and Paul Maynard

Wednesday 9th November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Paul Maynard (Blackpool North and Cleveleys) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to be called to speak in this important debate. I know the Opposition like to make their Wednesday afternoons political theatre, but there are many people on the Government Benches who are concerned about youth unemployment and have ideas about how the situation can be improved.

As the MP for Blackpool North and Cleveleys, I represent the fourth most deprived Conservative-held seat in the country. That is no badge of honour. It is with no sense of satisfaction that I report that year on year youth unemployment has risen 36% since September 2010. I take no pleasure from the fact that even on the figures that were fed to The Times by the Labour party, the number of long-term youth unemployed has risen from 75 individuals to 100 individuals since May 2010, but I point out to Labour Members, as they seem to have failed to understand earlier, that there are 276 constituencies where youth unemployment has fallen or remained static since May 2010, according to the same figures as they obtained from the House of Commons Library.

I am sure that everyone who speaks in the debate will say that apprenticeships matter, and they matter to me. I have taken on one apprentice, Nathan, in my constituency office, and he is excellent. Many on the Government Benches have done the same, but we in the House obviously cannot solve the problem alone. I am delighted that, thanks to what the Government have been doing, the number of apprenticeships in my constituency has risen from 300 to 940.

[Meg Hillier]

All hon. Members would agree that apprenticeships are a good thing and that we want more of them, but what would the hon. Gentleman say about the issue that I have picked up on on doorsteps throughout the country, which is that young people with A-levels, and sometimes with degrees, are going for apprenticeships that would normally have been available to young people with lower levels of qualifications, thereby pricing them, so to speak, out of the market? Does he share my concern about that and will he raise the issue with Ministers in his Government?

[Paul Maynard]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for raising that issue. It brings together a number of points that Members are likely to make this evening. First, we should welcome the fact that better qualified individuals are now seeking apprenticeships. We should not say that apprenticeships are only for those who are not academically inclined. Secondly, the Labour party now disapproves of older people seeking to take on apprenticeships. It was a Labour Government who commissioned the Leitch review, which wanted to see more older people going into apprenticeships.

I represent a seaside town. I know the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Mr Byrne) does not understand the economics of seaside towns, so I shall try to explain to him that one of our fundamental problems, as the hon. Member for Hartlepool (Mr Wright) pointed out in The Guardian interview that I saw in the debate pack, is that of generational worklessness and the potential for generational exodus, even—people not finding opportunities in seaside towns and having to leave.

For members of the third generation who do not have a job and cannot find a job, the inclination to go out and look for a job, and even seeing that part of their life involves going out to work, is lost. Part of the solution is getting the older generation into apprenticeships and into work as much as the younger generation. That is why, as my hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy) tried to make clear, the problem did not start in May 2010. It did not start even in May 1997 or May 1979. There has been a gradual structural problem of worklessness, particularly in post-industrial societies. Tourism and hospitality are not like coal mining or the steel industry, but they have none the less gone through a period of decline in my constituency and we have seen employment and opportunities fall as a consequence, so there is a challenge.

The shadow Secretary of State mentioned the Prince’s Trust, which does a fantastic job in my constituency. Three times a year it takes a group of 12 young people from deprived backgrounds. I have been to one of the thank you parties at the end of a session and heard the powerful tales of how they got into the situations they found themselves in. Many brought their problems to Blackpool from outside the town. Many came from broken homes, broken families and disappointed backgrounds, yet they have struggled and managed to succeed.

What frustrates me about the debate is not so much the usual political to and fro, the misuse of statistics and Members trying to portray things as good or bad, but the Labour party’s failure to understand that this is not about who is to blame. It is about trying to understand why worklessness occurs in our society, why young people are unable to enter employment and what we need to do to get them there. The Government are making progress. I would of course like it to be faster, but we are putting the building blocks in place and I welcome that.