HC Deb 26 June 1997 vol 296 cc970-1
4. Mr. Purchase

To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment what proposals he has to move into work long-term unemployed young people in Wolverhampton who are on welfare. [4093]

The Minister for Employment and Disability Rights (Mr. Andrew Smith)

In Wolverhampton, as in other parts of the country, under our new deal for young unemployed people between the ages of 18 and 24, we will offer quality opportunities to take jobs, and to gain relevant education, training and work experience.

The Employment Service will work in partnership with the business community, voluntary organisations and other bodies to ensure that the initiative is effective in Wolverhampton and elsewhere.

Mr. Purchase

Is not my right hon. Friend horrified to learn that even the fiddled figures that we put up with under the Conservatives show that 43 per cent. of young people in Wolverhampton have been unemployed for more than three months, and more than 20 per cent. have been unemployed for a year or longer? Does he agree that Conservative policies led to unsustainably high interest rates, which choked off the job-creating investment required in the west midlands and elsewhere that would have put an end to that problem? We should have been enjoying a boom in jobs for young people.

Mr. Smith

My hon. Friend is right to be shocked at the level of unemployment in his constituency, which means suffering for individuals. There is a corrosive effect on the whole community of having a workless class disconnected from mainstream opportunities. That is why we need the programmes in the new deal for the young and long-term unemployed, and why we need the wider policies for macro-economic stability as a platform for economic success and expansion, which our right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer will set out in the Budget.