The youth guarantee will provide more than 450,000 youth opportunities, supported by more than £1 billion of additional investment, and aims to help to get youth unemployment falling in the second half of this year.
I am grateful to the Secretary of State for that reply, but is it not the case that any positive effect of the young person’s guarantee will be far outweighed by the tens of thousands of young people who will find that they are unable to take up their degree courses later this year as a result of the £1 billion cuts to the higher education budget announced today by her colleagues?
That is simply untrue. We are already funding a significant increase in those in full-time education. In fact, in the past 12 months alone, the labour force survey shows an increase in those in full-time education of 200,000 compared with last year. We continue to support increases of those in higher education; the hon. Gentleman’s party wants to cut the numbers because it wants to make it more elitist.
I am sure the Secretary of State will join me in congratulating Conservative-run Norfolk county council, which today announced the creation of a further 300 jobs across Norfolk by April this year—but the future jobs fund is open to any organisation from the public, third or private sectors, so why has she got no other takers locally in Norwich, North?
I am glad that the hon. Lady welcomes the additional future jobs fund jobs that Norfolk county council is signing up to. I think she should have a word with the county council about where those jobs should be located, but she may also want to have a word with Conservative Front Benchers, because they have opposed the future jobs fund and said they would abolish it. That would mean that huge numbers of people in Norfolk and Norwich would lose the job opportunities for which they have been working for so long.
I thank the Government for that scheme. Given its importance to our constituencies, will the Secretary of State consider, as each month goes past, publishing details in the Library of the numbers of guarantees that are delivered in each constituency? Is she also aware that there is a difference in the rake-off—the fees charged by those providing the guarantees? The local authority charges £15, but one private company takes a third of the Government money just to administer the scheme.
I am very happy to look into the case that my right hon. Friend has in mind. Certainly, we will be producing official figures in due course—they will be produced by the Office for National Statistics in the normal way, to ensure that they are properly done.
I have been discussing the pluses and minuses of the changes that have taken place in Ellesmere Port with my right hon. Friend the Minister for Employment and Welfare Reform. One very big positive change has been a partnership between Jobcentre Plus and the local further education college. Jobcentre Plus is now located in the FE college, in very difficult circumstances—it is a big building site, thanks to this Government. Will the Secretary of State look at examples such as that one as a way of getting closer to young people, and working with them and their education providers to help to produce opportunities for work?
I know that my hon. Friend has been working very closely with employers—certainly in the retail sector—and jobcentres in his area to make more job opportunities available, including for young people. He will know that overall youth unemployment fell by 16,000 in the most recent figures and the claimant count fell by 7,000. It is worth noting that youth unemployment in the 1990s rose for a year and a half after the recession finished, and that in the ’80s, it rose for four years after the recession finished. We are determined not to let that happen this time.
It cannot have escaped the Secretary of State’s notice that youth unemployment has been rising for eight years under this Government, and today 927,000 young people are unemployed. The Government announced the young person’s guarantee in April last year, but it will not be fully up and running until April this year. With one in five young people unable to find a job, why has it taken the Government two years since the start of the recession to give extra help to the young unemployed?
I am sorry that the right hon. Lady chose not to welcome the drop in youth unemployment in the most recent figures. We need to keep working to help the young unemployed. She mentioned the figures, so let me tell her the latest figures for the claimant count. We have 484,000 young people on the claimant count looking for work. In the early 1990s recession the number was 871,000 and in the mid-1980s it was more than 1 million. So the figure is half that of the mid-1980s, as a result of the additional investment that we have put in to help young people through the recession.
Youth unemployment on the International Labour Organisation count has gone up by more than 300,000 since Labour came into power in 1997. The young person’s guarantee is virtually identical to the new deal for young people, which for many was a revolving door on to benefits. Indeed, the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Field) described the performance of the new deal for young people as derisory. Last year, fewer than one in four young people on the new deal found a job. Unlike our work programme, the young person’s guarantee is not aimed at getting young people into sustainable work. Is not the only conclusion that Ministers are only interested in saving their own jobs, not in giving real help to young people?
Again, the right hon. Lady talks nonsense. The ILO figures include people who are in full-time education but may also be looking for a part-time job, perhaps bar work. If we exclude the number in full-time education—which has rightly increased as a result of the action that this Government have taken—the figures today are 658,000 unemployed, compared with 832,000 in 1993 and again more than 1 million in 1985.
The right hon. Lady asks about the future jobs fund and the youth guarantee, which are providing 470,000 opportunities across the country. The future jobs fund is providing a range of quality career opportunities for young people to get on the first step of the ladder. It is tragic that she wants to oppose that. She says that she wants her own work programme instead, but she could not fund it, because her party would cut £5 billion that we are putting in to support the unemployed.