Unemployment (North-east)

Debate between Stephen Crabb and Ian Mearns

Wednesday 20th June 2012 Westminster Hall

[Stephen Crabb]

As the ministerial Whip for the Department, it is entirely appropriate that I respond to this debate, given that the other Ministers are tied up in other debates in the House.

The hon. Gentleman spoke well about the impact of unemployment on families and communities; that was one of the best parts of his speech. Like me, he comes from a part of the country where, historically, unemployment has been a blight on the community. He and I both have the privilege of representing constituencies in which we have grown up, and we understand the issues well. He powerfully explained the negative effect that unemployment has on communities.

Let me assure the hon. Gentleman and all colleagues in the Chamber this afternoon that the ministerial team at the DWP shares a passion and commitment for tackling unemployment. There is absolutely no complacency whatever within the departmental team about this issue. We recognise that unemployment, especially youth unemployment, is one of the biggest challenges that faces the Government.

[Ian Mearns (Gateshead) (Lab)]

I apologise for turning up late to this debate. I have been meeting a construction company from my constituency that is considering laying off 200 to 300 members of its work force—something that would be catastrophic. The hon. Gentleman correctly mentions the fact that there is little regional consideration of this whole matter. Therefore, there is no differentiation in approach across England in dealing with it, so while unemployment across England goes down, it goes up in the north-east.

[Stephen Crabb]

I dispute that. The Government are trying to move away from the one-size-fits-all policies of the previous Administration. We are looking at locally and regionally tailored solutions, where appropriate.

Several hon. Members mentioned today’s labour market figures. I am not as gloomy as the shadow Minister about them. There are reasons for a measure of optimism. Nationally, employment is up by more than 400,000 since 2010. Private sector employment has gone up by 843,000, since 2010, and it has gone up again in the past month. In the past 12 months, in the north-east region, employment overall has gone up by 10,000 and private sector employment has increased by 17,000, which more than offsets the drop in public sector employment. That counters the point that the Opposition made about the drop in public sector employment being a driver of overall unemployment in the north-east region.

Those are encouraging signs, but we recognise that unemployment remains too high. It is true that unemployment in the north-east remains higher than in other parts of the country. Several Members have referred to the fact that it has the highest unemployment figures of all the UK regions.

Long-term unemployment affects only a minority of people, but it is a particular concern because it brings with it the risk of detachment from the labour market and people losing the hope of finding work again or finding that the skills that they had are diminished or outdated.

In the north-east, more than 24,000 people have been claiming unemployment benefits for more than 12 months. That figure is much lower than it was 25 years ago—the hon. Member for Hartlepool referred to the 1980s—but it is still too high, and we are not complacent.

One of the groups that has been hardest hit during the last two years of recession is young people. We have seen encouraging signs recently that youth unemployment might be starting to come down. Excluding unemployed students, it fell by 23,000, to just over 700,000 in the most recent quarter. That still leaves almost 50,000 16 to 24-year-olds unemployed in the north-east, so there is clearly much more to be done.

In April, we announced an additional £1 billion package of support for young people through the youth contract. Very few Opposition Members mentioned the action that is taking place and the fact that, in the past year, some 7,000 young people have benefited from the work experience scheme in the north-east. Nor did they mention the fact that there are 30,000 additional apprenticeships in the north-east, more than 1,000 of which are in the constituency of Hartlepool. It is not surprising that they do not want to talk about it. As Labour Members elsewhere have mentioned, one of the big failings of the previous Labour Administration was that they did not recognise fully the importance of apprenticeships and the link between high-value apprenticeships and upskilling in the economy.