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Youth Unemployment

The right approach in the Scottish economy—where GDP growth has unfortunately been weaker than growth in the UK generally over the last period—is to build on the success of the future jobs fund and put in place not 3,000 opportunities for the future, but 10,000. That is the approach Labour will propose in the run-up to the coming elections. Let us address Labour's record in office, a substantive point which has already been mentioned. When Labour came to office in 1997 some 656,000 young people were out of work. As our economy grew, we introduced a welfare to work programme that included creating Jobcentre Plus and the new deal, and which made sure that three quarters of our young people who went on to jobseeker's allowance were off JSA within six months. Setting aside those in full-time education—and we substantially increased the number of people in full-time education—that meant that the number of unemployed young people fell by some 20%. Indeed, between 1997 and the start of the global financial crisis the claimant count among young people fell by some 40%, and that was at a time when the number of young people in our country was rising; between 2000 and 2009 it rose by over 1 million. I think that Members will therefore forgive me for agreeing with the man who described the progress we made as ““remarkable””, and who said:"““There is no question that the UK has made significant progress in the labour market over the last ten years.””" That man was the Government's welfare reform Minister, Lord Freud.