News from Southampton Labour

“Don’t waste the talents of a whole generation” urges Denham

With hundreds of young people in Southampton leaving education this month, Itchen MP John Denham has urged the Coalition Government not to cut support to youth jobs on a visit to the city’s Job Centre Plus.

Labour’s Future Jobs Fund has created over 4,500 youth jobs in the South East. But the government is scrapping this help, cutting university places and abolishing Labour’s Youth Guarantee of a job or training place for any young person who has been out of work for six months.

Figures released last week show the economy grew by 1.1% in the last quarter, nearly double official predictions. This proves Labour’s approach to securing growth was working, and that the Coalition’s programme of deep cuts puts the economic recovery at risk.

Mr Denham said: “Local young people should not pay the price for this government’s unfair cuts. Scrapping support for youth jobs is wasting the talents of an entire generation. That’s why I believe there should be more opportunities for young people around here to find work.

“Recent good news that the economy has grown at almost twice the rate some were predicting proves that Labour’s strategy to reduce the deficit through securing growth was paying off. It’s no coincidence that the construction industry has grown at its fastest rate since 1963 after the Labour Government invested in house building. But now all that’s being put at risk by the Tory-Lib Dem government’s reckless cuts.

“In the 90s the Tories said unemployment was a price worth paying to cut inflation – now they clearly think it’s a price worth paying to bring down the deficit.”