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Opportunities for the Next Generation

This debate is about the ability to provide skills, work and disciplined, self-organising working communities. That in turn provides revenue in tax and safeguards pensions, services and social security, on which we all rely to support the next generation. I draw the attention of the House to a response that I received from the Minister to a written question. I asked him:"““what assessment he has made of the potential effect on youth unemployment of the change in higher education fee arrangements in 2012.””" He replied:"““The change in the fee arrangements enables the Government to continue to finance a high number of places in higher education ""for students in 2012, and therefore there is expected to be no adverse impact on youth unemployment as a consequence of the change.””—[Official Report, 7 September 2011; Vol. 532, c. 721W.]" The poverty of that response from the Minister is surpassed only by the poverty that the Government's policy on tuition fees will induce in areas such as mine. Last week Bill Gross of PIMCO said that the market would look favourably on a change of the Government's economic plans. That is because the growth forecast has repeatedly been lowered. Inflation today was 4.5% of the consumer prices index, although that is not reflected in pay increases. We have seen an increase in unemployment, massive public sector redundancies and the private sector slowing down and building up for redundancies. In manufacturing and construction purchasing managers' index figures have declined continuously in the past few months under this Government Middlesbrough, unfortunately, tops the league in the north-east as the area with the highest youth unemployment, with 31.6% of economically active young workers aged 16 to 24 resident in the borough out of work. It is followed by Redcar and Cleveland, two boroughs that I also represent. Across the UK as a whole, almost one in five economically active young workers aged 16 to 24 are unemployed. Around 949,000 16 to 24-year-olds are out of work, following a rise of 15,000 in the last quarter, which is approaching levels last seen in the 1980s. Overall, unemployment rose by 39,000 in the three quarters to June this year, to top almost 2.5 million. The number of jobless women benefit claimants rose by 15,600 to over half a million, the highest rate since 1996. What is especially concerning for me, coming from an area where the mass unemployment of men from 1979 onwards led to a cultural phenomenon of long-term family unemployment, is that we are now seeing massive unemployment for women. We have not seen such unemployment rates since 1988. That has a massive cultural impact on constituencies like mine, where we have had fathers, brothers and uncles unemployed, because we will now see mothers, aunties and sisters unemployed for the long term, too, as a direct result of these policies. However, these concerns seem to be falling on deaf ears in the Government. The Office for Budget Responsibility, which was set up by the Government, knows that the Government will have to borrow £46 billion more as a result of their economic policies. That means that 200,000 more people will become unemployed, also as a result of those policies. I suggest to the Government that their rebalancing of the economy, along with the recovery, seems to be flatlining. The latest survey data from business organisations suggest that the manufacturing revival has run out of momentum. Even as businesses complain about engineering skills shortages, the unemployment rate remains the highest in the north-east, at 10%. The fear is that the skills hoarding that we saw before is not happening. The unfortunate position we are in at the moment is that the same people are now going back on short-term working agreements that they had only recently come out of. We are returning to a period in which the economy could go either way. One suggestion that the Minister might like to make to the Chancellor is to reverse the CFP policy, please look at primary industries, such as the chemical and steel industries, and please do not put manufacturing in jeopardy from foreign competition.