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Opposition day on Wednesday, 16 February 2011, in the House of Commons, led by Liam Byrne. The answering member was Lord Grayling.

Youth Unemployment

Eleventh opposition day debate (part one). Main question negatived on division (237 to 317).

Secondary information

Type
Parliamentary proceeding
Reference
523 c973-1025 
Session
2010-12
Department
Department for Work and Pensions
Chamber / Committee
House of Commons chamber
Proceeding contributions
Speaker | 523 c992 (Link to this contribution) Order. Before I bring other Members in, let me just say that the Front Benchers have taken up quite ...
Baroness Clark of Kilwinning | 523 c1004-6 (Link to this contribution) I am grateful for the opportunity to contribute to this important debate and to speak in favour of t...
Show all contributions (161)
Nick de Bois | 523 c1002-4 (Link to this contribution) It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Wansbeck (Ian Lavery). I hope that he will understand...
Damian Hinds | 523 c1006 (Link to this contribution) It is good to strike a bipartisan note in our debates, even on an Opposition day motion, and I am ha...
Chris Leslie | 523 c1008 (Link to this contribution) In the city of Nottingham at this time last year, youth unemployment fell for five months continuous...
Damian Hinds | 523 c1008 (Link to this contribution) I do not have such doubts. I cannot comment in detail on Nottingham's figures over the past few year...
Tristram Hunt | 523 c1008 (Link to this contribution) This is about the future jobs fund.
Damian Hinds | 523 c1009 (Link to this contribution) Actually, this is about unemployment and creating a vibrant economy in which people can be employed....
Tristram Hunt | 523 c1009-10 (Link to this contribution) This is a very important debate, and it is a shame to see the Government Benches so empty, not least...
Edward Timpson | 523 c1010 (Link to this contribution) Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Jenny Willott | 523 c999 (Link to this contribution) No; I want to ensure that there is time for as many people as possible to speak. The future jobs fu...
Jenny Willott | 523 c999 (Link to this contribution) I will not give way. Everyone will have the chance to speak later if they wish. As has been mention...
Jenny Willott | 523 c1000-1 (Link to this contribution) I will not. The future jobs fund was clearly not working in the way that it was supposed to. As wit...
Ian Lavery | 523 c1001 (Link to this contribution) I would like to focus on the young people who have lost their jobs. They are real people, and I welc...
Sajid Javid | 523 c1001 (Link to this contribution) Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Ian Lavery | 523 c1001 (Link to this contribution) No! [Laughter.] Go on, then. I apologise for that.
Sajid Javid | 523 c1001 (Link to this contribution) I thank the hon. Gentleman for so graciously giving way. There is a lot that hon. Members on differe...
Maria Miller | 523 c1018-9 (Link to this contribution) I thank Opposition Members for giving us the chance today to debate the record of the previous Labou...
Stephen Timms | 523 c1016-8 (Link to this contribution) We have had a good debate. From both sides of the House we have heard mounting alarm about the youth...
Edward Timpson | 523 c1010 (Link to this contribution) Cheshire, actually, but I know we are fairly close to each other. You'll get to know the geography f...
Tristram Hunt | 523 c1010 (Link to this contribution) I would be delighted to give way to a fellow north Staffordshire Member.
Gregg McClymont | 523 c1015 (Link to this contribution) Scrapping the future jobs fund is a false economy for this country, because in saving a relatively m...
Alison McGovern | 523 c1015-6 (Link to this contribution) I will be very brief, because many Members on both sides of the House have contributed to the debate...
Marcus Jones | 523 c1012-3 (Link to this contribution) John Curtis, Peter Whittingham, Darren Gradsby, Julian Alsop—there's four. They have all done well a...
Marcus Jones | 523 c1012 (Link to this contribution) It is incumbent on the Government to offer not short-term help but long-term sustainable help for yo...
Marcus Jones | 523 c1011-2 (Link to this contribution) I welcome the opportunity to contribute to this debate on youth unemployment. As I am sure all hon. ...
Anne Begg | 523 c1012 (Link to this contribution) As an employer, would the hon. Gentleman employ the person with two weeks' work experience on their ...
Maria Miller | 523 c1021 (Link to this contribution) If the hon. Gentleman will forgive me, I will not, because I have two minutes in which to finish. I...
Speaker | 523 c1025 (Link to this contribution) I now have to announce the results of Divisions deferred from a previous day. On the Question relati...
Maria Miller | 523 c1019-20 (Link to this contribution) If the hon. Gentleman will forgive me, I will not give way, because we have a lot to get through. I...
Maria Miller | 523 c1020 (Link to this contribution) I will absolutely get the record straight for the hon. Lady. It is very simple. She may give the Hou...
Sheila Gilmore | 523 c1020 (Link to this contribution) Is it not the case that youth unemployment fell below 700,000 only at the very end of the period 199...
Maria Miller | 523 c1019 (Link to this contribution) I will not, if the hon. Lady will forgive me, because we are very short of time. My hon. Friend the...
Lord Sharma | 523 c973 (Link to this contribution) The right hon. Gentleman was part of a Government who presided over a record rise in youth unemploym...
Liam Byrne | 523 c973 (Link to this contribution) I beg to move,"That this House believes that the Government was wrong to cancel the Future Jobs Fund...
Liam Byrne | 523 c974 (Link to this contribution) The unemployment figures are getting worse, not better. This morning I heard the Minister quibble on...
Lord Grayling | 523 c974 (Link to this contribution) For the record, will the right hon. Gentleman confirm that last month's unemployment figure in this ...
Liam Byrne | 523 c974 (Link to this contribution) The hon. Gentleman makes a point that is central to the debate, to which I shall return in substance...
Lord Grayling | 523 c984 (Link to this contribution) Following Mr Speaker's ruling last week, it is clear that it would be utterly unparliamentary to acc...
Liam Byrne | 523 c982-3 (Link to this contribution) That was not a straight answer to a simple question, which was why a DWP official confirmed the figu...
Lord Grayling | 523 c982 (Link to this contribution) If the shadow Secretary of State wants a briefing on the Work programme from the DWP, we will be del...
Liam Byrne | 523 c982 (Link to this contribution) Will the Minister explain why a DWP official confirmed to the BBC yesterday that 850,000 places were...
Lord Grayling | 523 c982 (Link to this contribution) The right hon. Gentleman should not believe everything he hears on the television. It is absolutely ...
Liam Byrne | 523 c983-4 (Link to this contribution) My hon. Friend, who chairs the Work and Pensions Committee, makes an important intervention. I hope ...
Anne Begg | 523 c983 (Link to this contribution) When we looked into the future jobs fund in the Select Committee, it became clear that everyone who ...
Liam Byrne | 523 c983 (Link to this contribution) My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. In a recession private sector jobs are thin on the ground. ...
Alison McGovern | 523 c983 (Link to this contribution) Can my right hon. Friend suggest what Age Concern Wirral in my constituency might think of the slash...
Liam Byrne | 523 c982 (Link to this contribution) I will give way to the Minister in a moment. The whole House wants an explanation of why the promise...
Liam Byrne | 523 c982 (Link to this contribution) So there we have it—one more broken promise. Next year, in 2011, the Office for Budget Responsibilit...
Speaker | 523 c982 (Link to this contribution) Order. One at a time. If Mr Byrne does not wish to give way, the Minister will have to accept it. I ...
Baroness Berger | 523 c980 (Link to this contribution) My right hon. Friend said that he thought that the Conservatives supported the future jobs fund. In ...
Liam Byrne | 523 c980-2 (Link to this contribution) I think the answer is simple: despite good intentions, the Prime Minister has let the Chancellor get...
Speaker | 523 c979 (Link to this contribution) Order. I understand the point the hon. Gentleman is making, but we must have shorter interventions. ...
Liam Byrne | 523 c979-80 (Link to this contribution) I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Ynys Môn (Albert Owen). As many of my hon. Friends ar...
Andrew Griffiths | 523 c980 (Link to this contribution) Perhaps I can help the right hon. Gentleman by making a short intervention. Does he believe that the...
Liam Byrne | 523 c980 (Link to this contribution) I am not sure whether the hon. Gentleman was in the Chamber at the beginning of the debate when we e...
Liam Byrne | 523 c979 (Link to this contribution) The hon. Gentleman exposes the dilemma that now perplexes the Government's entire back-to-work progr...
Nick de Bois | 523 c979 (Link to this contribution) I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his invitation. A job is very important to the individ...
Nick de Bois | 523 c979 (Link to this contribution) Does the right hon. Gentleman not understand that there is one significant distinction in respect of...
Liam Byrne | 523 c979 (Link to this contribution) I genuinely appreciate the point that the hon. Gentleman is making and the argument he is rehearsing...
David Lammy | 523 c978 (Link to this contribution) Does my right hon. Friend recall that two years ago during the passage of the Education and Skills B...
Liam Byrne | 523 c978-9 (Link to this contribution) My right hon. Friend is right to raise that question, which underlines the dilemma so many young peo...
Lord Grayling | 523 c978 (Link to this contribution) I am puzzled by a couple of points, and I wonder whether the right hon. Gentleman can answer them fo...
Liam Byrne | 523 c978 (Link to this contribution) I would expect the OECD to express concern about youth unemployment. Youth unemployment is a serious...
Liam Byrne | 523 c977 (Link to this contribution) The hon. Gentleman forgets to mention that the flexible new deal was introduced in the middle of the...
Rehman Chishti | 523 c977 (Link to this contribution) On the effects of the previous Government's policies, 279,000 people started on the flexible new dea...
Rehman Chishti | 523 c977 (Link to this contribution) The right hon. Gentleman says that those economic difficulties arose towards the end of Labour's tim...
Liam Byrne | 523 c977 (Link to this contribution) The figures are very clear. Between 1997 and the start of the global financial crisis the number of ...
Marcus Jones | 523 c977 (Link to this contribution) The right hon. Gentleman and his party seem to blame the global financial crisis for every ill, but ...
Liam Byrne | 523 c977 (Link to this contribution) The facts speak for themselves. Between 1997 and the start of the financial crisis the number of you...
Damian Hinds | 523 c977 (Link to this contribution) I am sure the right hon. Gentleman recognises the value of international comparisons as well as time...
Liam Byrne | 523 c977 (Link to this contribution) The number of young people not in education, employment or training was lower, not higher, when Labo...
Pete Wishart | 523 c976 (Link to this contribution) The right hon. Gentleman will welcome the fact that, under a Scottish National party Government, onl...
Rehman Chishti | 523 c976 (Link to this contribution) If the last Labour Government's proposals and policies were such a success, why were one in five 16 ...
Liam Byrne | 523 c976 (Link to this contribution) The right approach in the Scottish economy—where GDP growth has unfortunately been weaker than growt...
Liam Byrne | 523 c976-7 (Link to this contribution) This may not have come up on the hon. Gentleman's radar, but there was the worst financial crisis si...
Liam Byrne | 523 c975 (Link to this contribution) My right hon. Friend is right. Unless we hear something of substance from the Minister, I am afraid ...
Lord Field of Birkenhead | 523 c975-6 (Link to this contribution) If we are looking back on our period of stewardship and offering the Government lessons, does my rig...
Liam Byrne | 523 c976 (Link to this contribution) We have learned many lessons from the future jobs fund, and there are many successes on which we can...
Damian Hinds | 523 c975 (Link to this contribution) On the simple numbers, will the right hon. Gentleman confirm whether youth unemployment was higher o...
Liam Byrne | 523 c975 (Link to this contribution) Let me respond to that point in substance in a moment, and I will invite the hon. Gentleman to inter...
Toby Perkins | 523 c974 (Link to this contribution) Does my right hon. Friend agree that, worrying as the youth unemployment figures are, the complacenc...
Liam Byrne | 523 c974 (Link to this contribution) Any increase in vacancies is good news, but 40,000 is not an enormous increase, and when private sec...
Lord Grayling | 523 c974 (Link to this contribution) As the one who is intervening, I think it is my job to ask the right hon. Gentleman questions. Will ...
Liam Byrne | 523 c974 (Link to this contribution) Before I give way to the Minister, let me finish this point, as I want to put a question to him. As...
Joan Ruddock | 523 c975 (Link to this contribution) May I tell my right hon. Friend that in my constituency, in the first 10 years of the Labour Governm...
Liam Byrne | 523 c974-5 (Link to this contribution) My hon. Friend is right to highlight his constituency case, which has caused concern to families up ...
Lord Grayling | 523 c992 (Link to this contribution) We published those figures in December. I suggest that the right hon. Gentleman read the invitation ...
Lord Grayling | 523 c992 (Link to this contribution) No, I am going to wind up now. The Opposition were in government for 13 years, and they failed abje...
Chris Ruane | 523 c992-3 (Link to this contribution) Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, for calling me so early in the debate. In 2002, the unemployment stat...
Lord Grayling | 523 c993 (Link to this contribution) The Deputy Speaker does not want extended interventions, so I simply refer the hon. Gentleman to the...
Chris Ruane | 523 c994 (Link to this contribution) No—I am afraid that I might get my head bitten off. Why did the coalition Government not take evide...
Chris Ruane | 523 c994 (Link to this contribution) I am informed by my hon. Friend that it is £30,000 for Eton. Under the scheme, its cost £6,500 to tu...
Jackie Doyle-Price | 523 c995-6 (Link to this contribution) I am sure that every Member of this House believes it is a tragedy that so many of our young people ...
Sajid Javid | 523 c994 (Link to this contribution) Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Chris Ruane | 523 c994-5 (Link to this contribution) No, I would get told off. I am sorry, Mr Deputy Speaker, but I feel that I would. My local future j...
Michael Dugher | 523 c996-7 (Link to this contribution) I am proud to say that the future jobs fund was inspired by the review by the excellent leader of Ba...
Nia Griffith | 523 c998 (Link to this contribution) Does my hon. Friend agree that, right in the middle of a recession, the whole point was for the publ...
Michael Dugher | 523 c998 (Link to this contribution) My hon. Friend is exactly right. Those 2,000 private sector jobs in my constituency are coming from...
Jenny Willott | 523 c998-9 (Link to this contribution) It is worrying how many young people are unemployed at the moment. We can bandy figures around all d...
Michael Dugher | 523 c998 (Link to this contribution) No; I want to make some progress. We want to see more private sector jobs, but the Government need ...
Sajid Javid | 523 c998 (Link to this contribution) Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Liam Byrne | 523 c989 (Link to this contribution) The right hon. Gentleman surely accepts that the number of apprenticeships increased from about 63,0...
Albert Owen | 523 c989 (Link to this contribution) I, too, have supported apprenticeships over the past decade, and they have been a great success, but...
Lord Grayling | 523 c989 (Link to this contribution) Does the hon. Gentleman honestly think that businesses in his constituency would have been better of...
Anne Begg | 523 c989 (Link to this contribution) I worry about the either/or in the Minister's equation. He says that the answer is either apprentice...
Lord Grayling | 523 c989 (Link to this contribution) I accept the principle but do not agree with the detail of what the hon. Lady says. I shall come on ...
Pamela Nash | 523 c988 (Link to this contribution) My point comes from the same statistics. Do the Government honestly believe that 50% of young people...
Lord Grayling | 523 c988 (Link to this contribution) If that were the case. In reality, we know that a number of placements continued for seven, eight or...
Liam Byrne | 523 c988 (Link to this contribution) The Minister is helpfully rehearsing a series of his uncertainties about the effectiveness of the fu...
Lord Grayling | 523 c988 (Link to this contribution) I fully accept that there is a difference between us. The right hon. Gentleman believes that the fut...
Alison McGovern | 523 c990 (Link to this contribution) I thank the Minister for giving way, because this is a truly important point. When I have asked parl...
Lord Grayling | 523 c989-90 (Link to this contribution) I remember the right hon. Gentleman's former boss standing in this House and promising about 400,000...
Lord Grayling | 523 c991 (Link to this contribution) No, I have given way enough, and I am going to make progress. [Interruption.] When Labour Members ha...
Lord Jackson of Peterborough | 523 c990-1 (Link to this contribution) Is my right hon. Friend as incredulous as I am at the Opposition's faux outrage? They are members of...
Lord Grayling | 523 c991 (Link to this contribution) My hon. Friend is absolutely right. There is collective amnesia among those on the Labour Benches. O...
Lord Grayling | 523 c990 (Link to this contribution) Let me tell the right hon. Gentleman what we are doing to get young people into the workplace for th...
Lord Grayling | 523 c990 (Link to this contribution) We fund a certain number of apprenticeships, and there are 50,000 extra this year. They are being fi...
David Lammy | 523 c990 (Link to this contribution) The Minister has been extraordinarily generous in giving way, and I am very grateful, but he has not...
Liam Byrne | 523 c991 (Link to this contribution) It is curious that the Minister's colleague Lord Freud noted in his report:"““The New Deals have bee...
Liam Byrne | 523 c984 (Link to this contribution) Will the Minister explain why his colleague Lord Freud described the progress that we made in tackli...
Liam Byrne | 523 c985 (Link to this contribution) I am grateful to the Minister for his kind invitation. Will he accept that between 1997 and the begi...
Tristram Hunt | 523 c985 (Link to this contribution) Will the Minister explain why the Conservative party committed itself to the previous Government's s...
Lord Grayling | 523 c985 (Link to this contribution) I think that the right hon. Gentleman should listen to his right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhe...
Toby Perkins | 523 c986 (Link to this contribution) If you realised that they were making such a mess of things, why did you agree to follow those plans...
Lord Grayling | 523 c986 (Link to this contribution) We are taking decisions in the interests of the country. When I look back to 2005 and 2006, we alway...
Lord Grayling | 523 c986 (Link to this contribution) We spent years warning the Labour Government that their spending was getting out of control and that...
Speaker | 523 c986 (Link to this contribution) Order. Members should not be using ““you””—I have no responsibility for this and am certainly not gu...
Liam Byrne | 523 c986 (Link to this contribution) It says that this Government have put the recovery in the slow lane. That is why the figures we saw ...
Lord Grayling | 523 c987 (Link to this contribution) What we know is that the programmes the right hon. Gentleman left behind were not fit for purpose.
Lord Grayling | 523 c986 (Link to this contribution) I just do not think the right hon. Gentleman is listening to what I am saying. We have left in place...
Pete Wishart | 523 c987-8 (Link to this contribution) Will the right hon. Gentleman please take no lessons from the Labour party on apprenticeships? Some ...
Lord Grayling | 523 c987 (Link to this contribution) The latest information I have received from my colleagues in the Department for Business, Innovation...
David Lammy | 523 c987 (Link to this contribution) The Minister mentioned apprenticeships, and of course the whole House will know that there is an amb...
Lord Grayling | 523 c987 (Link to this contribution) I happen to think that youth unemployment is a significant issue and would rather retain for a few m...
Pamela Nash | 523 c988 (Link to this contribution) On that point, do the Government honestly believe that for 50% of young people to be in work a full ...
Lord Grayling | 523 c988 (Link to this contribution) It makes no sense at all. I have a theory. The hon. Gentleman and I agree that apprenticeships are ...
Damian Hinds | 523 c1007 (Link to this contribution) The hon. Gentleman displays—I shall not go on. The important thing to ask is whether that £6,500 is...
Tristram Hunt | 523 c1011 (Link to this contribution) My party's policy for growth is to rebalance the British economy, and to invest in industry, manufac...
Julie Hilling | 523 c1013-5 (Link to this contribution) I want to speak about the support needs of unemployed young people. In the 1980s and '90s, I spent ...
Albert Owen | 523 c979 (Link to this contribution) Before I became a Member I ran a centre for the unemployed during the 1990s, so I know how painful t...
Chris Ruane | 523 c993 (Link to this contribution) The Minister does not know. From my perspective as a constituency MP, and from that of young people...
Lord Grayling | 523 c991 (Link to this contribution) I will give way once more, and then I am going to wrap up.
Lord Grayling | 523 c985 (Link to this contribution) Well, we are still waiting for an apology from the right hon. Gentleman for his Government's record....
Ian Lavery | 523 c1001-2 (Link to this contribution) I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. I believe that we should wait to see the details of...
Liam Byrne | 523 c978 (Link to this contribution) I will give way to the Minister in a moment, but first I want to talk about the recession. As this a...
Liam Byrne | 523 c986-7 (Link to this contribution) If the Minister was so dead against it, why is the right hon. Gentleman leaving it in place until th...
Subjects
Apprentices Employment schemes Economic situation Social security benefits Training Young people Unemployment Future Jobs Fund Work programme
Link
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