Young Jobseekers

Nick Thomas-Symonds Excerpts

Tuesday 27th October 2015 Westminster Hall

[Nick Thomas-Symonds (Torfaen) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gray. I congratulate the hon. Member for Norwich North (Chloe Smith) on securing the debate and on her work as chair of the all-party group on youth employment. I particularly congratulate her on the digitally inclusive way in which she has approached the debate, which is to be welcomed. I agree with her comments about the personalisation of services needed at jobcentres and join her in commending Jobcentre Plus staff.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Lanark and Hamilton East (Angela Crawley), who spoke powerfully about the potential of our young people. The hon. Member for Mid Derbyshire (Pauline Latham) spoke very well about the benefits that come from having work. My hon. Friend the Member for Ealing Central and Acton (Dr Huq) spoke extremely well about the problems of zero-hours contracts and, indeed, of benefit sanctions. I suppose we must all hope that Oscar Wilde is wrong and that youth is not wasted on the young. I also congratulate the hon. Member for Bolton West (Chris Green), who spoke very well about the need for flexible support, the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), who made a thoughtful contribution on the position of the long-term unemployed, and the hon. Member for Derby North (Amanda Solloway), who drew well on her local knowledge.

I make one comment about the final intervention from the hon. Member for Gloucester (Richard Graham). I reassure him that I stand here as the son of a steelworker, and I totally understand what the can-do spirit is. The former mining community in my constituency, which I grew up in, also totally understands the can-do spirit. I know he is usually constructive, but that last contribution was slightly out of kilter with the usual quality of his contributions.

[Richard Graham]

I am absolutely delighted to hear that the hon. Gentleman is so committed to a can-do spirit that is focused more on providing opportunities than on regretting reductions in benefits to young people. I hope he will join me in recognising the extraordinary achievements across constituencies in most of the country in reducing youth unemployment. In my constituency, it has gone from 1,000 people, when the Labour party left power, to 250 today. I hope he will recognise that that is the result of a can-do spirit by Government, constituents, businesses and others working together.

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

We will always welcome reductions in unemployment. This week, we are talking about the changes to tax credits that are affecting 3.3 million working families and taking away £1,300 a year from them on average. I am sure the hon. Gentleman will agree that that is certainly not a can-do spirit—that is clobbering people who are in work. I certainly do not commend that, and I hope he will join me in condemning it.

[Richard Graham]

The hon. Gentleman should listen—

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

The hon. Gentleman should perhaps listen to his own constituents and the families who are losing out.

The statistics make for sobering reading: 683,000 people between the age of 16 and 24 are still unemployed, and 138,000 of those have been unemployed for more than 12 months. As a percentage, it does not get any better: 14.8% of the economically active population is unemployed. Even if we take into account those in full-time education, the figure is still 13.2%.

Nobody should underestimate the potential problems of youth unemployment for a person’s employability throughout their life. One of the contributors to the speech by the hon. Member for Norwich North made the point that young people want to get experience in order to get a job, but they cannot get a job and so cannot actually get the experience. If someone cannot get a job, there are also issues of not getting into the habit of working, not being able to develop skills and of feeling socially excluded from mainstream society. We have to tackle these issues. To do that, we need quality apprenticeships and quality work placements; in that sense, I commend to the Minister the approach taken by the Government in Wales.

Over the next three years, the Jobs Growth Wales programme will produce nearly 9,000 placements, each of which will be an initial six-month placement paid at or above the national minimum wage. I commend that strong, activist approach to the UK Government, because we really must not fail our generation of young people. If we do, it will be an intergenerational injustice.