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Youth Unemployment

I am proud to say that the future jobs fund was inspired by the review by the excellent leader of Barnsley council, Steve Houghton. I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Mr Byrne) for his warm and fitting tribute to Steve Houghton earlier in the debate. Barnsley was one of the first councils to implement the scheme, which has made an important difference to many, not only in my constituency but across the country. Since its inception in 2009, the future jobs fund has given young people and the long-term unemployed valuable opportunities by creating real work, with real experience and real job prospects. In Barnsley, a third of those on the programme have already gone into jobs. It is hoped that 200 people will be in employment before the funding regrettably expires in March. The Government's decision to scrap the fund—a scheme that would have created up to 200,000 jobs for young people up and down the country—is sadly just another example of how they are letting young people down. Ending the future jobs fund was one of the Government's early decisions. Since then, the education maintenance allowance has gone, tuition fees have been trebled, we are seeing cuts to Sure Start and the school building programme is being cut across the country. Tackling youth unemployment has been a challenge for all Governments, but thanks to initiatives such as the future jobs fund, youth unemployment fell by nearly 25,000 between February and April 2010. Since this Government were elected, there has been a massive jump in youth unemployment. Figures out today show that it has risen to a record high, with more than one in five 16 to 24-year-olds now out of work—a rise of 66,000 people to nearly 1 million. In my constituency, nearly 14% of the population are aged between 18 and 24, yet that age group accounts for 35% of people claiming jobseeker's allowance. We are facing a youth unemployment crisis in this country the scale of which we have not seen since the 1980s. If the Government do not act, this will not only damage our young people's employment prospects, but affect them for the rest of their lives. It is well documented that early spells of unemployment for an individual, result in reduced employment prospects and lower earnings over their lifetime. Today, for every 100,000 people that this Government put out of work, £500 million is added to the cost of paying jobseeker's allowance, so theirs is not even a strategy for reducing the deficit. The fundamental flaw in the Government's Work programme is that there is simply not enough work. They fail to understand that in parts of the country there are still unemployment blackspots. Focusing on job output may be fine in some parts of the country, where the economy may be expanding, but it will not work in more deprived areas such as Barnsley, where there are still serious structural problems in the local economy and where simply not enough jobs are available. In my constituency, there are currently just over 190 Jobcentre Plus vacancies for more than 2,500 people claiming jobseeker's allowance. That amounts to 14 claimants for every job vacancy. However, this Government's approach is solely about getting people into existing jobs. There is no policy for either job creation or the growth that would create those jobs, particularly in the weaker economies. The Government have to think again, as our motion says. There is an overwhelming need for a job creation programme targeted particularly on those areas with the highest unemployment. The main criticism of the future jobs fund is that not enough jobs were created in the private sector. We all want to see more jobs in the private sector, and in my constituency we will have 2,000 more jobs.