Alistair Strathern

“I absolutely agree that we need to invest in apprenticeships to ensure that many more young people can access them, as well as work placement opportunities in their communities. That is why I welcome the spotlight that the Milburn review is already starting to shine, forensically, on barriers to young people accessing such opportunities. I am really keen to ensure that the Government lean into the practical implications of his diagnosis that we need to shift more money from supporting young people who are out of work into helping them into good paid work. I am very proud to have supported the Government’s jobs guarantee, and of the wider work that we are doing to ensure that employers in my community and right across the country are practically and financially incentivised to bring young people into the world of work and supported to train them up, so that those young people can benefit from opportunities that feel out of reach to far too many of them at the moment. That is an approach that we need to thread into all our work in this space. I was very moved by the conversations that Gareth Southgate had in last month’s documentary, in which young men who had been out of work for a very long time spoke of the impact it had on their self-esteem. It reflected issues with their confidence that had been long in the making. It reflected how they felt in their communities, and how they felt they were treated at school. Putting that right requires a continued focus on curriculum reform and place-based investment, but I would like the Government to go further in embracing the recommendations of the recent review on white working-class underachievement at school, to make sure that every young person, no matter what community they live in or where they come from, has no barriers to succeeding, and can feel confident in their ability to succeed at school. In a moment of agreement, let me agree with the Conservative party’s diagnosis that we need to go slightly further on business rates to support fantastic local employers in doing more for young people. I think the Conservatives are being slightly cheeky in skirting the fact that the plans we inherited from them would have seen a huge cliff-edge increase in business rates. The many financial pressures that we have had to juggle since coming into government have meant that it has been challenging to balance things. I approve of the work that we have done to try to ease some of the multipliers, and I would like us to go further still. I also approve of the work that we have done to give further discounts to pubs, given that they have been in decline for decades, and I would like us to go further still there. Fundamentally, however, the plans we inherited from the last Government would have been completely disastrous for the very businesses whose virtues the Conservatives are espousing today. If the Conservatives are so passionate about the errors of the Government’s choices on the minimum wage and national insurance, I encourage them to be bolder, and to do more than just offer regret, because regret will not change a single aspect of those policies’ implications. If they are genuinely confident that there are better ways to plug the gaps in our public finances and improve our public services, why are they not committing to reversing the national insurance hikes? If they genuinely believe that the minimum wage has gone up too far, why are they not embracing the practical end point of that argument by suggesting that they would cut it? Maybe it is because, much as they like to complain about the implications of our policies, they begrudgingly recognise that in the incredibly difficult circumstances that we inherited, both those choices may well have been right. I look forward to a Conservative Member proving me wrong. I thank the many Members who have shared their fantastic experiences of summer work, and the many colleagues with whom it has been inspiring to work on some of these issues, including staff from Amazing Apprenticeships, a charity in my constituency that does genuinely amazing work to boost apprenticeship opportunities for young people across the country. I look forward to continuing to work with them as the Government bring forward the Milburn review.”