Youth Unemployment

Michael Dugher Excerpts

Wednesday 16th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Chris Ruane]

No—I am afraid that I might get my head bitten off.

Why did the coalition Government not take evidence? They could have come to my constituency and consulted Ali Thomas and the young people taking part in these schemes, who were gaining confidence, experience, camaraderie and esprit de corps in their groups of 10 to 15, and feeling pride and joy in being able to plan their first holiday, take their first driving lesson, or gain a certificate from the local college, and in having meaningful work with a meaningful pay packet at the end of the week. I will be sending the Minister, who is still not listening, a DVD made by those young people about their job placements. I hope that he will look at it and get back to me.

When I stared those young people in the eye at the presentations, they were full of pride and joy at their achievements—achievements that will be dashed by the Conservative party. One of the main attractions to the young people in the scheme was that it was a proper job with a proper rate of pay. They could be sacked if they did not turn up or if they were not motivated enough, and they had to be punctual. Their reward was the potential for a job at the end of the six-month placement.

Shorter, cheaper, unsubsidised placements will not have the same take-up or buy-in among young people. Such schemes that were introduced by the Conservatives in the past were pilloried and laughed at by the young people who attended them. YTS was called “young, thick and stupid” by young people. They want no part in such schemes. They want quality schemes like those introduced by the previous Government and abolished by this Government.

The future jobs fund has the respect of the young people who have participated, the employers who have taken them on and the people who have administered it. The main reason given for its abolition was the cost. The Government deemed £6,500 too much to pay to turn around a young life. I ask Government Members who send their children to private schools how much they pay a year to turn their children’s lives around. There is one rule for the rich and another for the poor.

[Michael Dugher (Barnsley East) (Lab)]

Thirty grand for Eton.

[Chris Ruane]

I am informed by my hon. Friend that it is £30,000 for Eton. Under the scheme, its cost £6,500 to turn around a young life. But no, that is too much. There are a million young people—and the number is rising—on the dole. What will be the cost if they fall into a life of crime? If that positive path is denied them, they might turn down a negative path. It costs £50,000 a year to keep a person incarcerated. That is money down the drain.

--- Later in debate ---

[Michael Dugher (Barnsley East) (Lab)]

I am proud to say that the future jobs fund was inspired by the review by the excellent leader of Barnsley council, Steve Houghton. I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Mr Byrne) for his warm and fitting tribute to Steve Houghton earlier in the debate. Barnsley was one of the first councils to implement the scheme, which has made an important difference to many, not only in my constituency but across the country. Since its inception in 2009, the future jobs fund has given young people and the long-term unemployed valuable opportunities by creating real work, with real experience and real job prospects. In Barnsley, a third of those on the programme have already gone into jobs. It is hoped that 200 people will be in employment before the funding regrettably expires in March.

The Government’s decision to scrap the fund—a scheme that would have created up to 200,000 jobs for young people up and down the country—is sadly just another example of how they are letting young people down. Ending the future jobs fund was one of the Government’s early decisions. Since then, the education maintenance allowance has gone, tuition fees have been trebled, we are seeing cuts to Sure Start and the school building programme is being cut across the country. Tackling youth unemployment has been a challenge for all Governments, but thanks to initiatives such as the future jobs fund, youth unemployment fell by nearly 25,000 between February and April 2010.

Since this Government were elected, there has been a massive jump in youth unemployment. Figures out today show that it has risen to a record high, with more than one in five 16 to 24-year-olds now out of work—a rise of 66,000 people to nearly 1 million. In my constituency, nearly 14% of the population are aged between 18 and 24, yet that age group accounts for 35% of people claiming jobseeker’s allowance. We are facing a youth unemployment crisis in this country the scale of which we have not seen since the 1980s. If the Government do not act, this will not only damage our young people’s employment prospects, but affect them for the rest of their lives. It is well documented that early spells of unemployment for an individual, result in reduced employment prospects and lower earnings over their lifetime. Today, for every 100,000 people that this Government put out of work, £500 million is added to the cost of paying jobseeker’s allowance, so theirs is not even a strategy for reducing the deficit.

The fundamental flaw in the Government’s Work programme is that there is simply not enough work. They fail to understand that in parts of the country there are still unemployment blackspots. Focusing on job output may be fine in some parts of the country, where the economy may be expanding, but it will not work in more deprived areas such as Barnsley, where there are still serious structural problems in the local economy and where simply not enough jobs are available. In my constituency, there are currently just over 190 Jobcentre Plus vacancies for more than 2,500 people claiming jobseeker’s allowance. That amounts to 14 claimants for every job vacancy. However, this Government’s approach is solely about getting people into existing jobs. There is no policy for either job creation or the growth that would create those jobs, particularly in the weaker economies.

The Government have to think again, as our motion says. There is an overwhelming need for a job creation programme targeted particularly on those areas with the highest unemployment. The main criticism of the future jobs fund is that not enough jobs were created in the private sector. We all want to see more jobs in the private sector, and in my constituency we will have 2,000 more jobs.

[Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that, right in the middle of a recession, the whole point was for the public sector to provide some of those jobs—in construction, for example—to keep people’s skills up, ready for when the private sector picked up?

[Michael Dugher]

My hon. Friend is exactly right.

Those 2,000 private sector jobs in my constituency are coming from ASOS, the online fashion company—I do not see too many takers in the Chamber for its clothes, but we live in hope—but those jobs did not happen by accident. The reason 2,000 jobs are coming to my constituency is that when Labour was in government, we built the facilities that will house those jobs. We built the road that attracted the company in the first place. The public sector plays a big part in supporting private sector jobs.

[Sajid Javid]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Michael Dugher]

No; I want to make some progress.

We want to see more private sector jobs, but the Government need to move away from the mentality that says that public sector jobs are not, as the hon. Member for Enfield North (Nick de Bois) said, “real” jobs. In many parts of the country, the choice is not between a public sector job and a private sector job; it is between a job and no job. The criticism that too many of the jobs were in the public sector—a criticism that I share—is not a reason to scrap the scheme, but a reason to strengthen it. It is an argument to expand it to include more private sector businesses in those unemployment blackspots and to invest in industry.

The positive benefits of employment cannot be overstated. Most people cite a lack of confidence and skills as the reason for not finding work. Having a job is good for people’s well-being and their physical and mental health. It provides them with an opportunity to prove themselves, giving them an identity, confidence and self-worth—the pride that comes from having money in their pocket and the dignity of knowing that they have just earned it. Everyone knows that it is also easier to get a job for those who already have one.

We saw the impact of previous Conservative Governments in areas such as the one that I am proud to represent—a whole generation of young people growing up with little or no hope of getting a job. It is clear that this Government have not learnt from those mistakes, and are once again letting young people down. There is a growing consensus that the Government need a plan B to get the economy right—growth has stalled—but it is equally obvious that they need a plan A to deal with unemployment and, in particular, the lack of opportunities for young people in my constituency and throughout the rest of the country.