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Youth Unemployment

It is good to strike a bipartisan note in our debates, even on an Opposition day motion, and I am happy to concur with what a number of Opposition Members, including the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Mr Byrne), have said about the scourge of youth unemployment and that these are things we cannot wait to tackle. I am pleased and proud to speak in favour of one of the key clauses in the motion—the bit that says,"““urgent action is now required to stop…young people being lost to worklessness””." I think we can all agree on that but I suspect we might differ on something that I firmly believe—that the change of management in this country in May 2010 was an important first step towards doing that. The right hon. Gentleman's Government left one in five young people out of work. The sharp rise in unemployment started in March 2008, but the sad truth is that there was double digit unemployment among young people according to the standard International Labour Organisation measure even in the good years—the years when the Government were borrowing to the hilt and spending money like it was going out of fashion. In an earlier intervention, I presented the right hon. Gentleman with the international comparisons that he declined to comment on in detail, but perhaps he will do so later. Of course, Government programmes play a part in all this. I do not think that anyone in the House is suggesting there should be no Government intervention on youth unemployment—of course not. However, I say to the hon. Member for Vale of Clwyd (Chris Ruane), who I am delighted has just returned to the Chamber, that the piece of analysis that he presented concerned entirely the wrong question. We should not ask whether turning around a young person's life is worth £6,500—of course it is. It is worth that and a whole lot more.