Oral Answers to Questions

Sarah Smith Excerpts

Monday 29th June 2026 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Employment (Dame Diana Johnson)]

I agree with the hon. Gentleman’s comments about the excellent DWP officials in our area. Youth hubs will be in areas where we are working with, say, sports clubs and other organisations. We are also looking at whether we can use buses to get mobile youth hubs out to rural areas in particular, so perhaps that is a conversation we can carry on outside to see what we can do.

[Sarah Smith (Hyndburn) (Lab)]

Before being elected to this place, I spent many years looking at how we can tackle the NEET crisis. Does the Secretary of State agree that we should be ambitious for our young people and aim to have 0% NEETs?

[Pat McFadden]

I have discussed this with my hon. Friend. There are great schools I have visited that have a record of NEET zero. They do that by paying attention to employability and work right from year 7, so I believe there is more that can be done to reduce the figure and put work and opportunity at the heart of the reform of the system that we are bringing forward.