Liam Byrne
MP for Birmingham Hodge Hill and Solihull North · Labour · United Kingdom
“The loss of 4,000 jobs at Jaguar Land Rover is a body blow for workers, families and communities across the west midlands, so I commend Richard Parker, the Mayor of the West Midlands, for moving quickly on Monday to put £500,000 on the table to help ensure that everybody gets back to work.”
“I wholeheartedly welcome this well-rounded statement from the Foreign Secretary, and put on record my thanks to the new Prime Minister for the hard yards that I know he has put in over recent days and weeks.”
“I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way, and I offer my warmest congratulations to her on her appointment to the role; she will be a brilliant Minister.”
“Let me start with a word of thanks to my hon. Friend the Member for Chester North and Neston (Samantha Dixon), who is not in her place, who said quite rightly that an awful lot has changed since the Bill was first introduced to this House. Indeed, a lot has been revealed over the course of the summer.”
“The effect of new clause 34 would be to ban off-ramping, ban new forms of digital currency transactions and ban memecoins, which are exactly the kind of measures that Ministers now need to bring forward. If we want to take the crypto system out of political finance, this is what we need to do.”
“No doubt we will learn that Mr Cottrell was in fact on the electoral register when that money was passed. No doubt we will discover that his mother, Fiona Cottrell, declared and did not disguise the fact that the money had ultimately come from her son.”
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“Some 30,000 women in this country have had to give up work in the last year because they can no longer afford the child care. That is £50 million in lost tax to the Exchequer. What a shambles. The tragedy in this debate is that there is a different way. We have set out a different way of jump-starting growth and getting people back into work. Yes, it does start with a tax—a fair and sensible tax—on bankers’ bonuses to help get 100,000 young people back to work. What have this Government proposed instead? They have proposed a fund of about one third of the size, paid for not by those with blessings to share, but by children and families who are already feeling the squeeze. That decision alone tells us everything we need to know about who this Government stand for.”
“Finally, I want to talk about the impact on women of these Budget changes. The shadow Home Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper), will say more on this in her winding-up speech. She has already set out with clarity and force how the Budget changes made by this Government have, overwhelmingly, hit women harder than men. I would just highlight to Members, and especially those on the Treasury Bench, the comment made yesterday by the hon. Member for Calder Valley (Craig Whittaker). He put it very simply when he said that of course women are paying the price most. At least someone on the Government Benches has the honesty to tell it straight. He was right: women are being hit hardest by these Budget changes, not least through the changes to child care.”
“I am grateful to the Secretary of State and I am following his argument closely. Further to the intervention from my hon. Friend, the right hon. Gentleman will no doubt have seen the analysis from the Institute for Fiscal Studies this morning. If it is true that the Government are not hitting the poorest families harder, why has the IFS said that for 2012-13 the poorest three deciles in this country are being hit three times harder than the overall average?”
“I am grateful to the Secretary of State. He is being most generous. The IFS was pretty clear this morning. It said that the richest decile would see an impact of just over 0.5%. The poorest decile would see an impact of minus 1.6%. So it is clear that the poorer families in this country are being hit much, much harder than the richer ones.”
“Does the Secretary of State acknowledge that the benefits bill rising on his watch by £29 billion is a sign of failure? It is too high and it would come down if the Government helped more people back into jobs.”
“We think that we could get more people into jobs if we had a temporary cut in VAT to get shoppers back on to the high street; if we cut national insurance for small firms to hire extra workers; if we brought forward infrastructure projects, none of which we saw yesterday; if we cut VAT on home improvements; and if we had a tax on bankers’ bonuses to get 100,000 young people into jobs.”
“The truth is that the plan laid out by my right hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh South West (Mr Darling) would have halved the deficit over four years and, according to the OBR, resulted by the end of this Parliament in borrowing £8 billion less than that which the Chancellor set out yesterday. It would have involved borrowing £37 billion less than the Chancellor over the forecast period. The truth is that he has put borrowing through the roof, because he has put welfare through the roof, because he has put unemployment through the roof.”
“The hon. Gentleman is kind in giving way, and I am following his argument closely. I am not certain which measure of inequality he is looking at, but I am sure he would accept that the Gini coefficient, which is one of the most popular measures of inequality, was practically the same at the end of Labour’s term of office as at the beginning. I am sure he would also accept that, looking around the world, the UK was one of the only countries in the OECD—I think that Turkey and Ireland were the others—where inequality was held in check. It went through the roof everywhere else.”
“Is the hon. Gentleman as concerned as I am about the Institute for Fiscal Studies estimate that a further 600,000 children will be plunged into absolute poverty over the course of this Parliament, and is he worried about the Treasury’s own analysis published yesterday showing that 100,000 children may fall into child poverty over the next year or two?”
“The hon. Gentleman is making his argument with passion and force, as he always does. He will be worried, I am sure, that the cuts made over the past 18 months mean that in his constituency 700 families are losing help with child care, and the tax credits of nearly 6,000 people are being cut. He must surely accept that that is contributing to the squeeze his constituents are feeling.”
“I am following the Pensions Minister’s argument closely. The Budget also set out about £30 billion of cuts in the next Parliament. Will he confirm whether it is the Liberal position to support those cuts?”
“With the OECD forecasting that unemployment is set to spiral to more than 9% in the next year or two, it is clear that the squeeze on working families will only get tighter and tighter. Can the Secretary of State remind the House how much extra it is budgeted will come off tax credits over the next year?”
“I am happy to write to the Secretary of State with his own figures. Budgets laid out by the Chancellor project that more than £3 billion will come off tax credits and child benefit for working people, starting from next April. That squeeze is already serious, and that is why it is unacceptable to propose a further squeeze on tax credits in order to pay for the Secretary of State’s failure to get young people back to work. On Friday, the Deputy Prime Minister was asked where the money for the new youth contract would come from. He said: “Well the money clearly comes from the Government”. He is full of insight. Will the Secretary of State confirm that he has been rolled over by the Deputy Prime Minister and that tax credits will be squeezed to pay for his failure to get young people back to work?”
“My own 24-year-old is out on the dole. They lose what little self-respect they once had.” When I asked what young people needed, my constituents’ answer was pretty straightforward: work and to help them feel worthy. I know that what my constituents have been saying to me will have been echoed in constituencies around the country.”
“Last week, the CBI said: “youth unemployment presents a specific and urgent challenge.” Last month, the chief executive of the Prince’s Trust said that the number of unemployed young people is now twice the size of the population of Manchester and: “If we fail to tackle youth unemployment now, we risk losing this talent forever which would be a tragedy.” My constituency has the highest level of youth unemployment in the country, and throughout the summer residents have been telling me that we have got to do more to help our young people—people like Deborah Gillespie from Shard End who said: “I’ve been looking since June for a job for my 16 year old. No jobs for him! He is a hard-worker. No-one will give him a chance.” One of her neighbours has said: “As I am an older person, I must say I do feel sorry for out-of-work youth.”
“Yesterday, the Trades Union Congress confirmed that youth unemployment has now risen in 97% of communities. Last Friday, the Work Foundation urged Ministers to take urgent action to help the lost generation or risk a crisis in Britain’s communities.”
“Today we have a chance to force the Government to come to the House to explain their complete failure to address the crisis now unfolding in almost every community in this country: the crisis of youth unemployment and the re-emergence of scars that we thought had gone from communities, never to return. When we debated this issue in February, we heard some pretty complacent arguments from Treasury Front Benchers. Indeed, we had the spectacle of a Minister trying to blame the rise in youth unemployment unfolding on his watch on what happened five years ago. I hope we do not have that spectacle again this afternoon, because it is about time that the Government had the guts to take responsibility for their decisions. In the past few weeks, the chorus of voices raising the alarm about youth unemployment has grown loud and wide.”
“on home improvements and a one-year national insurance tax break for every small firm which takes on extra workers. I am glad to have the opportunity to open this Opposition day debate on youth unemployment, but sad not to see the Secretary of State in his place on the Treasury Bench. This is the second such debate we have had on youth unemployment, and it is the second such debate in which the Secretary of State has not been in the Chamber to present the Government’s argument. I am glad we have the opportunity to debate the motion today because next week we will see figures that could show youth unemployment has risen above 1 million, but I hope that it will come down.”
“since January 2011 it was a mistake to abolish the Future Jobs Fund and urgent action is now required to stop a generation of young people being lost to worklessness; agrees with the IMF’s warning that ‘consolidating too quickly will hurt the recovery and worsen job prospects’ and that the Government should have ‘a heightened readiness to respond, particularly if it looks like the economy is headed for a prolonged period of weak growth and high unemployment’; and calls on the Government to adopt the Opposition’s five point plan for jobs which includes using funds raised from a tax on bank bonuses to guarantee a job for 100,000 young people and build 25,000 affordable homes, bringing forward long-term investment projects, temporarily reversing January’s VAT rise, a one-year cut in VAT to five per cent.”
“I beg to move, That this House believes that the Government’s policies of cutting spending and raising taxes too far and too fast have resulted in the UK economy flat-lining for 12 months, well before the recent Eurozone crisis; notes that unemployment has reached a 17-year high and youth unemployment has hit a record level of 991,000; further notes that slower growth and higher unemployment makes it harder to get the deficit down and that the Office for Budget Responsibility forecasts £46 billion more borrowing than the Government planned; further believes that with long-term youth unemployment up by 64 per cent.”
“The hon. Gentleman will know that I am familiar with his constituency because it is where I grew up. What his constituents want to know is what this Government are doing about the rise in long-term youth unemployment in his constituency. I hope that he will use the opportunity of this debate to press his Front Benchers to do more for some of the young people like the people I grew up with in his constituency.”
“What the hon. Gentleman’s constituents want to know is what the Government are going to do about the crisis of youth unemployment unfolding in constituencies— [ Interruption. ]”
“What the hon. Gentleman’s constituents want to know is what this Government are doing for unemployed people in his constituency now. He might like to live in the past; his constituents want to know what he is doing for them today.”
“My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Under the Labour Administration, youth unemployment was 300,000 lower on average than under this Government today, even while the economy is supposed to be in recovery.”
“Let me remind the hon. Lady that under the previous Government, even at a time of recession, youth unemployment and long-term youth unemployment were coming down. That is because in the face of a crisis we chose to act. The question that she has to answer—”
“I might finish responding to the hon. Lady first. The question that the hon. Lady has to answer for her constituents is why under Labour, even in recession, youth unemployment was coming down by 38%, and now, over the course of this year, long-term unemployment is up by 68%—on her Government’s watch. What is she going to say to those on the Treasury Bench about what further action they must take?”
“The hon. Gentleman is an astute observer of current affairs, and he will have noticed that the worst international financial recession was under way—”
“Let me just answer the hon. Gentleman’s question. He will know that the worst global recession since the 1920s was under way, yet despite that, before the election, youth unemployment was coming down. He must answer this question: how is it that this Government are doing so well, when since the beginning of this year long-term youth unemployment has risen by 68%? Hundreds of constituencies around the country have seen long-term youth unemployment double. If he has the right plan, can he explain exactly what is going so well?”
“I am grateful, at last, for a consensual note. [ Laughter. ] The hon. Gentleman’s hon. Friends might laugh, but the fact that long-term youth unemployment in his constituency is up by 48% this year is not a laughing matter. This debate is an opportunity for us to interrogate this Government on what they are doing to get youth unemployment down and how, ahead of the autumn statement, they should negotiate with the Chancellor for more resources to get our young people back to work.”
“The future jobs fund worked because it helped to create 100,000 opportunities for young people all over the country. When we met to debate this matter in February, the jury was still out on the results. We now have the Department’s own evaluation and the judgment is categorical: “for many participants their reported experiences had been to such a high standard, that they could not think of any improvements to the scheme.” The Government cancelled it anyway.”
“My right hon. Friend has experience of this matter at the sharp end. Long-term youth unemployment in his constituency is up by 78% this year. I know what a difference programmes such as the future jobs fund made in his constituency. That is why it is such a tragedy that before the evaluation was in, this Government chose to cancel the project. That is why this debate is so important. The Opposition do not believe in half measures when it comes to getting young people into work. At the end of the recession, youth unemployment was down by 38%. A year and a half into the recovery, youth unemployment is up. This year, long-term youth unemployment is up by 64%. When we were confronted by the great increase in youth unemployment, we did not stand idle but did something about it.”
“My hon. Friend makes an extremely important point, which echoes that made by the hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness (Mr Stuart). We know that if people are out of work when they are young, they are more likely to be low paid in the course of their career, more likely to suffer ill health and more likely to be unemployed again. That is why the Prince’s Trust and others are right to focus their attention on the crisis of youth unemployment that is unfolding in our country.”
“I want to start with the flagship package of measures launched last May. So important was it, so pregnant with opportunity, so sure was it to make a difference, that the Deputy Prime Minister himself was allowed to put out the press release. Those measures came replete with a total budget of £60 million over three years—a grand total of £20 for every unemployed young person. Or we could look at it as 5p a day to help—”
“The Secretary of State, who is not here today, reeled off a list of programmes at Question Time last month, when he said that there are “work clubs, work experience, apprenticeship offers, sector-based work academies, the innovation fund, European social fund support,”— it is nice to see the Secretary of State supporting Europe on something— “the skills offer, the access to apprenticeships programme, Work Together, the Work programme, Work Choice, mandatory work activity and Jobcentre Plus.” —[ Official Report , 24 October 2011; Vol. 534, c. 4.] It is not clear how Jobcentre Plus is an innovation of this Government, but none the less it earned a place in his list. The only problem is that none of these programmes is making a blind bit of difference, so let us take some of the key measures one by one.”
“The hon. Gentleman makes an extremely valuable point, which I hope he will develop in the course of the debate. When this Government were first in office, at a time when the economy was fragile, when the recovery was in its first stages, when they were launching the biggest programme of Government cuts for many years, and when there was a risk of rising unemployment, as was made obvious by the Office for Budget Responsibility, they chose, at huge expense, to take out the key back-to-work programmes that we had in place, which were keeping unemployment down. That will stand as one of the worst judgments made by this Administration. I know that the Government will in a moment protest that they are taking action.”
“I shall give way in a moment, because I would like some questions answered. That is 5p a day to help workless young people. In total, the scheme costs less than the Department spends on stationery—what an insult! Will the Minister tell us how many people the Government have got back into work? Just give us the number.”
“This is the Minister whom the chairman of the UK Statistics Authority once wrote to about his casual use of statistics, so I shall take no lessons from him about statistics traded across the Dispatch Box.”
“The hon. Lady need only look at the statistics, including those for her area. This year, long-term youth unemployment has risen by one third in Solihull. The future jobs fund was helping to bring youth unemployment down. To return to the point made by the hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness (Mr Stuart), we have to help young people stay close to the labour market because if we let them drift into long-term unemployment, they have a bigger chance of being unemployed in the future, of being low paid and of drifting into ill health. That is why the right decision for her constituents, as well as mine, is not to do nothing, but to act.”
“Long-term youth unemployment in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency is up this year by 133%. That is a serious increase. I am happy to share with him the figures produced for us yesterday by the House of Commons Library. Those statistics speak to one key point: we need action to get youth unemployment down, and we need it now.”
“I can tell the hon. Gentleman the figures in his constituency. Long-term youth unemployment in his constituency has risen by 233%, and that is an extraordinary increase, but surely he will agree with the judgment of the TUC, the CBI and the Prince’s Trust that now is the time for urgent action to get young people back to work, including young people in his constituency.”
“The figures are seasonally adjusted, as the hon. Gentleman will know, but surely he is not saying to the House and to his constituents that he is seriously relaxed about the rise in long-term youth unemployment in his constituency. I simply do not believe that that is his position.”
“My hon. Friend speaks with some passion, because he is right. We cannot tolerate any longer a situation in which long-term youth unemployment continues to rise at today’s pace.”
“Before I became a Member, I started a business. I know what it is like to start a business with two people around a kitchen table, to grow it, build it, take on new staff and do well, but dealing with regulation was the easy bit; selling and making a profit was the tough bit, and that is why we need urgent action to get growth back into the economy.”
“I shall give way to the hon. Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy) for the last time, and then I shall turn my attention to the Government’s flagship Work programme.”
“The hon. Gentleman’s constituents will want to know why he is living in the past, and what he is doing to take to his Front Benchers the argument about what more they are going to do in the autumn statement to get our young people back to work. We have heard about the great success that is the flagship youth programme. Now let us turn to the Work programme.”
“In a moment. I shall just tell the House a little about the Work programme. We have debated before the virtues of the Work programme, and I understand that young people can now be referred to it early. I shall put aside for one moment the Work and Pensions Committee’s conclusion that it is one third smaller than previous programmes, because the Minister has strong views about that, and I shall put aside also the Social Market Foundation’s analysis that the DWP offers providers of successful outcomes a maximum amount of money that is 25% less than the flexible new deal, because those facts are not the worst of it. The worst of it is that the Department itself expects three quarters of people to flow straight through the programme and straight back on to the dole, so I ask the House, how is that going to make a difference?”
“I know that my right hon. Friend will agree that it is curious that while unemployment is going down in America, the eurozone and Japan, it is going up in this country.”
“Getting into Oxford university is less competitive than that. Given those figures, an ally of the Chancellor of the Exchequer has said that the Chancellor thought that apprenticeships were “a rare piece of good news, but it’s turning out to be a con”. The unnamed ally is right: it is a con. We have a Work programme that is all programme and no work, a youth jobs scheme that costs less than the stationery budget and an apprenticeship scheme that is harder to get into than Oxford university. No wonder overall long-term youth unemployment is going through the roof. Let us hear an answer from the Minister.”
“I will give way in a moment, because I want to turn to apprenticeships, which the Minister has mentioned. Apprenticeships have sometimes been seen in this debate as the Department’s silver bullet, so let us be clear: ours was the party that rescued apprenticeships. We inherited 65,000 apprenticeships; the figure was over 260,000 when we left office. This year, 85% of new apprentices will not be young people, but people over 25. Leaked documents seen by The Guardian show that Ministers have been warned that apprenticeships are actually a re-badging of existing jobs. It turns out that about 11,000 of this year’s new places have gone to 16 to 18-year-olds. I should point out for the House that 205,000 of those aged 16 to 17 are now on the dole. If they all applied for one of those apprenticeships, they would have a 5% success rate.”
“Will the Minister intervene again and say whether it is more competitive to get into Oxford university or to get on one of his apprenticeships? Just tell us: which is easier?”