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Opportunities for the Next Generation

Just a minute; I want to make a bit more headway on this point. There is a very similar pattern in numbers of NEETs. On the current data series starting in 2000, there were 655,000 NEETs in 2000, and when Labour left office there were 874,000. I have looked up the figures for two dates that may particularly strike the shadow Secretary of State's memory. When he arrived as Secretary of State in the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills, there were 835,000 NEETs. During the following two years, until he left that post, he was remorselessly harried on those figures by his Opposition spokesman. By the time he left the post, the number of NEETs had risen to 954,000; we debated that many times in the House. We had an increase of 120,000 on his own watch as the Secretary of State responsible. Actually, he got out just in time: the quarter after he left, the number went over 1 million, to hit 1.74 million. I had hoped we would hear a slightly more frank account from him of the lessons he learned about the difficulty of tackling the challenge of NEETs, drawing on his own experience. The shadow Secretary of State went on to complain about our record, but I have to say that when in opposition we warned about Train to Gain, which we said was not a serious investment in training opportunities; about programme-led apprenticeships, which were losing contact with the jobs market; and about paper vocational qualifications being churned out that did not meet the real needs of employers. Those warnings, sadly, have proved to be correct.