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

21 August 2009

This week the Government has announced that there are now a record number of young people classified as being not in education, work or training (the so called ‘neets’) as a result of the economic downturn.

And the figures show that one in six adults aged 18 to 24 in England have now fallen into this unhappy category.

The neets numbers were falling in preceding years, at the end of last year we had record numbers of young people gainfully employed in education and training and that high point make this week’s figures look all the worse – but we are not just sitting back and sympathising, we are investing in opportunities and taking real action now.

We have invested an extra £5 billion to help people get back into work quickly. This money is paying for more jobcentreplus staff in Dover and across the country and it will provide more opportunities for people of every age. It is real help now, right when people need it.

This investment also means that by next month the Government will be able to guarantee work or training to every 18 to 24 year old but this is the same investment that the Conservatives sadly opposed.

Last month we announced another 47, 000 innovative new jobs for young people and for the long term unemployed from the Future Jobs Fund. This will ultimately create 150,000 jobs across the country but there’s more to do on the training front.

We have joined up with business, the public sector and charities to launch our new ‘Backing Young Britain’ campaign with the expectation of encouraging everyone to do whatever they can to help young people through the recession and we are funding 20,000 new internships – half of which will be reserved for 18 to 21 year olds who haven’t been to university.

Apprenticeship schemes – which had almost dried up when we came to office – are now thriving despite the down-turn. There are over 200,000 apprentices working in England and we are increasing this by another 35,000 to temper the impact of the recession.

I was living and working in Dover during the deep recessions of the eighties and nineties and, like many of you, I well remember how our young people were cruelly left behind to waste away on the dole.

And our misery in East Kent was made worse by the Tories attack on the miners and Mrs Thatcher’s destruction of the pits in the East Kent Coalfield, scarring whole communities in the process.

We must never again repeat the failed policies of the past.

Back then the Conservative Government failed to support the workers and abandoned young people and it’s clear they would repeat their mistakes now because they oppose Labour's policies to help to get people back into work quickly and they consistently vote against our investment in jobs.

They are sometimes accused of abandoning a generation but the truth is they abandoned several generations.