---

Youth Unemployment

I will be very brief, because many Members on both sides of the House have contributed to the debate and have made excellent points. Young people are always the victim of recessions; they are always the least able to cope. That is true around the world now: in both wealthy nations and developing countries, young people are the victims of the recent global economic crash. It was true in 1992 as well, which was a recession I remember only too well. We live in a changing world. It is no longer possible to be like my dad and fail at education but succeed in the world of work. We have a different economy, where skills are necessary not just for well-paid jobs but for all jobs. That will continue in the future; our place in the global market has changed and we must recognise what that means for young people. The existing culture of worklessness that other Members have mentioned and which my neighbour, my right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead (Mr Field), has done so much to research and question, arose from the failure in the 1980s to plan for change. Because we failed to plan then for better employment, we have an entrenched culture of worklessness. I hope that Ministers in this Government will not make the same mistake. I have certainly seen their commitment and I hope they will build on it by changing course. To make sure that young people, especially those on Merseyside and those I represent in Wirral, do not pay the price of the crash, the Government should slow down the cuts, and invest to save. We shall not fix the deficit by forcing young people to remain on the dole. The Government must rethink their plans for work experience schemes that bear too many of the hallmarks of the short-termism of YTS in favour of real jobs in the voluntary and social sector. We can support that sector, which means so much to us, by investing in such jobs, as the future jobs fund was doing. That is the lesson the Government need to learn. It is not by pandering to hard-line calls for cuts that we shall fix the deficit, but by investing in young people for the future.