Government Policy (NEETs)

Debate between Tony Baldry and Anne Marie Morris

Tuesday 9th November 2010 Westminster Hall

[Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con)]

A number of right hon. and hon. Friends want to intervene during this debate. As I have told the Minister what I intend to say, I hope hon. Members will excuse me if I take my speech at a bit of a canter because that will, I hope, give colleagues the opportunity to intervene when they can. Given the interest in this topic, I slightly regret that I did not enter the ballot to have an hour and a half debate.

A report on young people not in education, employment or training produced earlier this year by the then Select Committee on Children, Schools and Families states:

“We accept that the term ‘NEET’ is imperfect. In particular, its use as a noun to refer to a young person can be pejorative and stigmatising. It is, however, a commonly used statistical category, and—in the absence of an appropriate alternative—we have accepted it as a first step in understanding the issues.”

A NEET is someone under 25 who is in employment for less than 16 hours a week and who is not in education or training. My constituency has two main towns, Banbury and Bicester. In September this year, 7.5% of Banbury’s 16 to 18-year-olds—approximately one in 12 young people—were not constructively engaged in education, employment or training. Nationally, the Prince’s Trust estimates that almost 15% of 16 to 24-year-olds in England are NEETs, which is around 874,000 young people. The Prince’s Trust estimates that the cost to the state of young people who are NEET is £3.65 billion per year.

As hon. Members may know, in recent years, I have helped to establish job clubs in Banbury and Bicester and, earlier this year, we set up a working party involving those running the job clubs—including Jobcentre Plus and Connexions—to consider what more could be done to help NEETs back into education, employment or training. We also considered how to improve the NEET situation in future years and assist the 142 or so existing NEETs in and around Banbury.

I know my hon. Friend the Minister takes the issue seriously. He inherited a skills system that he has rightly described as over-complicated, over-bureaucratic, incredibly micromanaged and top heavy. He has observed that the previous Government went wrong by basing their skills policy on target-driven bureaucracy, failing to provide sufficient attention to community-based adult learning and effectively abandoning a generation of NEETs. However, during the work I have been doing this year, I have become concerned that a number of policy changes might have the unintended consequence of worsening the opportunities for less skilled and disadvantaged young people to move into further education or employment with training.

We need to consider whether returning the contractual relationship to the Young People’s Learning Agency from councils has reduced local flexibility to provide what is needed post-16, and whether removing the ring fence from Connexions funding has put at risk the work needed to prevent NEETs. It is not possible for me to show in Hansard a diagram of what we are doing locally to try to prevent NEETs and to help existing NEETs. However, the simple fact is that Connexions is the gateway for existing NEETs and provides the signposting, engagement and intervention to help them. That is done through support with apprenticeships, engagement with things such as SKIDZ motor mechanics, work trials, personal advice, interventions, or through programmes such as the new projects in Banbury, including the very welcome new Prince’s Trust programme. We need to ensure that Connexions can effectively undertake that work, because we should be in no doubt that the long-term cost to society of a youngster dropping out at 16, 17 or 18 is far greater than the money that would be spent in ensuring they have educational or training opportunities.

[Anne Marie Morris (Newton Abbot) (Con)]

I am certainly grateful for the debate. The comments my hon. Friend makes about the costs are absolutely on point. I am sure he is well aware that the cost to the taxpayer is £97,000 per individual over their lifetime—some estimates put the figure at £300,000 if benefits are included. Does he therefore agree that such figures need to be borne in mind when the Government consider how to resolve this intractable problem?

[Tony Baldry]

I entirely agree with that point, which my hon. Friend makes extremely well.