Oral Answers to Questions

Tony Lloyd Excerpts

Monday 5th March 2012 Commons Chamber

[Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)]

11. What steps he is taking to tackle youth unemployment.

[Tony Lloyd (Manchester Central) (Lab)]

19. What steps he is taking to tackle youth unemployment.

[The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Chris Grayling)]

The youth contract, to which I referred earlier, is worth nearly £1 billion. It builds on the substantial support already available to help unemployed young people to enter work. It includes more intensive support for all 18 to 24-year-olds, additional funded work experience places and a new wage incentive scheme delivered through the Work programme.

[Chris Grayling]

As the hon. Gentleman knows, I regard the labour market in the north-east as one of our big priorities. That is why we have targeted the area with support through the regional growth fund and established an enterprise zone in the Tees valley, and that is why we are doing all that we can—through the Work programme, the different aspects of the youth contract, and our work in the skills arena in providing more apprenticeships—to bring about both private sector growth and an increase in the skills of the hon. Gentleman’s constituents to help them get into work.

[Tony Lloyd (Manchester Central) (Lab)]

The Minister has form with respect to inner-city Manchester: he once compared Moss Side to the film “The Wire”. Will he tell me whether he takes the question of youth unemployment seriously? We know that, if left unchecked, it will have an impact on all the malaises that lead to exactly the sort of thing that we see in north American cities, and we do not want to see it once again in inner-city Britain.

[Chris Grayling]

Let me say first that the hon. Gentleman clearly never read the speech that I made, and secondly that I defend my comments in relation to the country as a whole in the wake of the terrible scenes that we saw last summer. That issue is one reason why we must focus on youth unemployment, why we are investing so much money in tackling it, and why it is at the top of the Government’s list of priorities. It is just a shame that the last Government failed to deal with the problem in good times, when it started to become an issue after 2004.