European Youth Guarantee

Part of the debate – in the Scottish Parliament at on 19 March 2014.

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Photo of Kenneth Macintosh Kenneth Macintosh Labour

I am happy for my figures to be challenged, examined and scrutinised by anybody in the Parliament. These figures are absolutely unequivocal: the number of people who go to college in Scotland has fallen from something like 480,000 to 300,000. It is a phenomenal figure.

It is a disgrace that the SNP claims that it is spending more on colleges, when it should be utterly ashamed of the doors that it has slammed in people’s faces in this country. I do not doubt that SNP colleagues desire to do the best for people in Scotland, but for them to deny the implication of their own policies is blind—it is blinkered. To constantly blame others for the decisions that they take with the power that this Parliament has to make a difference is not logical. It will certainly not persuade people to vote for the SNP in September.

We need to do more. Just last week, the Labour Party announced what we could do: a guaranteed jobs scheme for all young people on unemployment benefit for over a year and all adults aged 25 and over who have been on benefit for more than two years. The Government would pay wages and national insurance directly to businesses to cover 25 hours of work per week. In addition, a Labour Government would provide an extra £500 per employee to help businesses with set-up and administration costs. That is the kind of practical programme that we need to give young people a helping hand into work.

Even in Opposition in this Parliament, from 2007 onwards, my Labour colleagues and I have argued to reinstate Labour’s future jobs fund and establish a Scottish wage subsidy programme. I was one of the first to welcome it when John Swinney, the cabinet secretary, finally announced £15 million in his budget statement in September 2012. It took a further year for the employment minister to announce the employment recruitment initiative. I have asked the Scottish Parliament information centre to estimate the figures. They are only indicative at the moment but I believe that just over 4,500 jobs have been created up to March this year. That is 4,500 jobs that are more than welcome, but what could have been created with more of a sense of mission, more of a sense of purpose and more drive behind the initiative?

Young people have been the hardest hit by the recession and we must act now to give them a brighter future. We do not need to bemoan lost opportunities, and certainly not to defer all decisions until after September this year. We need to use the powers of this Parliament and this Government today to make a difference to young lives.