Unemployment

Many will draw exactly that conclusion, not least because when they see a Secretary of State who is unable to come to this House and set out how many jobs his various initiatives are creating, they must conclude that he simply cannot be bothered to find out. I want to spell out how two particular groups are being pretty badly hit by this Government's policies. The human cost of the Government's failure to get people back to work, to which my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton (Steve Rotheram) alluded, will be on everybody's minds this afternoon. When families get together this Christmas, there will be plenty of anxious talk about the year ahead. This House has debated many times before the dangers of creating a lost generation, and today that news got even worse. Youth unemployment is up by 54,000. As my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition said earlier today, long-term youth unemployment is up this year by 93%. Two hundred and seventy of us now represent constituencies where long-term youth unemployment has risen by over 100%. That is simply not good enough.