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Youth Unemployment

We published those figures in December. I suggest that the right hon. Gentleman read the invitation to tender for the Work programme. I will tell him, however, that the number of people who went through contracted programmes in the last year of the Labour Government was well under 600,000, and that next year's projections for the Work programme are over 600,000. As for my noble Friend Lord Freud, if he thought that the Labour Government were doing so well, why does the right hon. Gentleman think that he joined us? The Opposition were in government for 13 years, during which they systematically delivered for this country a higher level of youth unemployment than they inherited. They spent almost £4 billion on new deal programmes, much of it aimed at getting young people into work. Even while all that money was being spent, we saw youth unemployment grow between 2005 and early 2007 and rise steadily in the run-up to the recession. Back in 2008, the OECD published a report raising concerns about what the British Government were doing and stating that only in Britain was youth unemployment rising, while everywhere else it was falling. So let us have no more accusations from Labour Members about the coalition's record. We have been in office for nine months. We inherited from them 600,000 young people who left school, college or university and have never worked. We are moving ahead with plans that will make a real difference to those young people—through the Work programme, through apprenticeships, and through the schemes we are introducing at Jobcentre Plus level to help them into employment.