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Finance (No. 3) Bill

I want to make some brief remarks on the amendments. The hon. Member for Nottingham East (Chris Leslie), who leads for the Labour party, mentioned that youth unemployment has grown to roughly a fifth of 16 to 24-year-olds. Of course we all deeply regret the wasted talent that that represents, whether of young people who have qualified at school or college or have left university with a degree and cannot find jobs or those who have not acquired any training or education—the so-called NEETs, those not in education, employment or training. Over the years, I have worked with many charities, such as Fairbridge and the Prince's Trust, which try to help such people in my constituency. I must gently tell the hon. Gentleman that many of his points were made in the last Parliament when I used to sit where his hon. Friend the Member for Leyton and Wanstead (John Cryer) is sitting now and I spoke for the Liberal Democrats on skills and higher education. The number of NEETs and the rate of youth unemployment increased year on year throughout the previous Parliament; the number just about touched 1 million before the general election. I am sure the hon. Member for Nottingham East was not trying to give the impression that youth unemployment had reached 1 million purely because of the actions of the Government. It has been a problem in some cohorts of young people for a long time and has seemed intractable for Administrations of many parties, but the Government are trying to do some good things to tackle it, such as investment in apprenticeships and in the Work programme that will come in shortly.