YOUTH EMPLOYMENT RESOURCES (Hansard, 20 July 1976)

§ Mr. Robin F. Cook (Edinburgh. Central)
I beg to move, That leave be given to bring in a Bill to provide for the local co-ordination of agencies related to youth employment; and for connected purposes. There can be no day more appropriate for the House to consider a measure relating to youth unemployment than the day on which we have received the monthly unemployment figures. The picture that they reveal is frightening. Unemployment among young people has doubled since last month and is now running at one-seventh of the total unemployed.
In some areas the rate of unemployment is higher than the national average. In my area of the Lothians, the careers service has been notified of fewer than 300 vacancies this summer although it is expecting 8,000 young people to leave school. Less than 10 per cent. of school leavers in the Lothians will be able to find work this summer. I do not propose to labour the general picture because Question Time has shown that most of us are aware of it and that both sides of the House are seized of the need to respond to the problem.
We are not faced with just a short-term crisis. For a decade there has been an underlying trend towards higher unemployment among young people. Except for the year in which the school leaving age was raised there has been a higher increase in unemployment among school leavers in every year since 1968 when productivity bargaining took away the untrained and unskilled posts which are the first work experience of most young people.
The burden of this unemployment falls particularly on the unqualified young school leaver. For the half of the school population leaving school with no paper certificate the range of jobs available is increasingly narrow because of the high rate of unemployment, which means that employers can be increasingly selective. Three years ago no qualifications were needed to be a plumber's assistant. Today three "O" grades are required. Three years ago three "O" grades were re- 1522 quired to be a bank clerk. Today three higher grades are required.
We face a problem of structural unemployment offering fewer prospects to all young people. The future is bleak for those who leave school without qualifications. This is happening to a generation which was led through the media to have higher expectations. There will be bitter disappointment if they are faced with unemployment which could in turn create damage to our society.
The trouble is that the problem is regarded as a short-term crisis. As many hon. Members demonstrated, we have responded with short-term measures. The criticisms of the job creation programme primarily arise because it is a short-term crash programme and because it has led to training schemes which do not necessarily lead to long-term prospects. We have approached the matter from a short-term angle. Perhaps we should look to Canada, from which we took the idea of the job creation programme, and where one-third of the jobs created under the programme turn into permanent job opportunities.
My second point is that because we have responded to the problem as a short-term crisis, the short-term measures that have been introduced are being administered on an ad hoc basis by a variety of Government agencies. There are eight Government Departments and statutory agencies involved in administering the special measures that have been introduced in the last 18 months. That has created a bewildering range of Government agencies involved in the one problem. It gives rise to confusion.
The sponsor of a job creation programme may well find that he has to deal with up to four separate Government agencies. That experience can be frustrating. It hinders the development of a co-ordinated approach to the problem. Most hon. Members have experienced an unemployed constituent at the surgery who has been promoted through the TOPS scheme only to find that had the TSA consulted the local office of the Employment Services Agency it would have discovered that there were no jobs available for the skill which he had acquired. That does not illustrate the best use of limited resources. Because of cuts in public expenditure, some local 1523 authorities are reducing their commitments to vocational education and sometimes in the same area the TSA is under-spending its allocation.
I am not naive enough to suggest that we can transfer resources from one area to another but nevertheless we should at least have the machinery whereby the TSA can be informed whether there has been a shortfall of provision by the local authority and the machinery to provide a stimulus to step in and fill the breach in that locality.
My third argument is that the machinery must be wider than that involving the Government agencies alone. It should also include the trade unions and, in particular, voluntary organisations which have a part to play in terms of job creation. One of the most disappointing aspects of the programme is that most of the schemes have come from local authorities in some way or another with the local authority acting as sponsor. We need machinery to provide the stimulus to other groups in the community, such as voluntary organisations which have a rôle to play and which must be administered locally by those who know the needs and demands of the area.
I have outlined the three main weaknesses in our provision which my Bill seeks to remedy. It would do so by providing for the creation of local manpower development agencies, empowered to bring together Government agencies working on unemployment and young people at a local level with industry and voluntary organisations. My proposals follow closely the recommendations of the Young Volunteer Force booklet published last month which drew much of its experience from advising many voluntary organisations in the job creation programme.
It will be music to the ears of my Front Bench to know that my Bill does not require any further resources. It is not as important to increase resources as it is to provide effective machinery to ensure the proper use of those public and private resources which are already available.
I am aware that the Bill is being introduced late in the Session and that it does not have a bright hope of reaching the statute book—although I was encouraged by the workmanlike attitude of the House 1524 during Private Members' business on Friday. The job creation programme has been budgeted to come to an end in the autumn of 1977. Someone somewhere in Whitehall is now thinking of what will take its place. It is therefore important that I should have this opportunity to try to influence the thinking and to influence that decision-making process. It is also important that I should have the opportunity to provide a focus for the representations of the many organisations outside the House which have taken an interest in the subject and which would also like to influence that decision-making process. I hope that the House will grant me leave to publish such a Bill.

§ Mr. Kenneth Lewis (Rutland and Stamford)
On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. The hon. Member for Edinburgh, Central (Mr. Cook) has made an interesting speech. The subject of youth employment and the agencies connected with it is more important than the subject that we are to discuss in a few minutes—

§ Mr. Kenneth Lewis
rose—

§ Mr. Speaker
We have a lot of work to do today.

§ Mr. Kenneth Lewis
I was simply going to ask, Mr. Speaker, that we should have time to debate the Bill and have more than one speaker on the subject. The reason—

§ Mr. Speaker
Order. The hon. Gentleman knows that on a Ten-Minute Bill hon. Members may only oppose the measure or let it go through, and that is the end of it.

§ Mr. Kenneth Lewis
I know, Mr. Speaker.

§ Mr. Speaker
I am glad to hear that.

§ Mr. Kenneth Lewis
Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. You did not give me much chance to say what I was going to say. A new situation has arisen. The word "Bill" apparently now means "Bills", so that the rule which applies—

§ Mr. Speaker
Order. The hon. Gentleman must not waste the time of the House like this.