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The Prosser Perspective.... a weekly column from Dover and Deal MP Gwyn Prosser

15 January 2009

Last year was a difficult time for people and we all know that there will be more pain in 2009 but as we start the new year it’s gratifying that Labour is continuing to take urgent action, delivering real help now to get families and businesses through the downturn fairly.

In last week’s column I recalled my own scrapes with unemployment, mentioned some of the ways the Government was helping people through the global credit crunch and promised that there was more help in the pipeline.

This week I’m able to list some of the additional provisions being put in place to support people through these hard times and spell out our strategy to get the economy working again.

As well as the immediate support package available to the newly unemployed we are providing a skills boost to help people who have been without a job for six months back into work.

This week we have committed to providing another 75,000 training places and coupled with the extra support announced before Christmas there will now be an extra 100,000 training places to help individuals and businesses through the downturn.

We know we can’t always prevent someone losing their job but what we can do is to help give them the skills they need to find a new job as soon as possible.

During the Tory years the apprenticeship system all but collapsed and youth unemployment soared to obscene levels. This Government’s support allowed more than 180,000 apprenticeships last year and Ministers have just announced funding to provide an additional 35,000 in the year to come.

This week, Gordon Brown made a regional tour to see for himself how the Government is providing real help now to families and businesses and how Britain can build on the investment of the last ten years so that as we come through the global downturn we are best prepared for the future.

In the last decade, unprecedented investment has powered a genuine renaissance in our towns and cities, 3 million jobs and 1 million small businesses were created and we have built up major strengths in manufacturing and services.

Our most pressing challenge is dealing with the economic downturn but we must not be tempted to slow down the pace of investment and reform to strengthen our country for the future. That’s why the Government is accelerating its capital spending programmes. Public investment will be increased by £10 billion over the next two years to its highest level for a generation and we are injecting £40 billion of capital in to our physical infrastructure - schools, hospitals and transport networks - but also in the industries of the future - digital communications and low-carbon technology, the large-scale infrastructure projects of the 21st century.

So, if 2008 was the year we confronted the global economic downturn, 2009 must be the year that we provide real leadership to invest and build a prosperous future.