If the right hon. Gentleman looks at the previous paragraph, he will see that the evaluation said that half the cost of an intervention came back to the Exchequer within a three-year period and that the wholly inadequate replacement for it was the Work programme, which sends more people straight back to the jobcentre after two years than it places in sustained work. It also performs shockingly badly not just in Edinburgh, as we were hearing earlier on, but for those in need of support, such as older workers and people with health problems for whom it has so far recorded failure rates of 87% and 93% respectively. The Work programme has been a failure and we must replace it with something that works better.
On youth unemployment, the Deputy Prime Minister saw what was going on and had an attack of conscience. He announced the Youth Contract, which the Government promised would lead to 160,000 work subsidies for young jobseekers. It started in April 2012 and it was an utter flop. It was not promoted. That was undoubtedly because DWP Ministers, with the possible exception of the Minister for Pensions, did not have their heart in it. Employers knew nothing about it. Those who did hear of it were confused by it and had nothing to do with it. The Government’s own advisers on poverty and social mobility said that it was not working, so last summer it was unceremoniously shut down early, after it had achieved fewer than 10% of the promised placements that were budgeted for. Ever since then, unemployment among young people has been going up.
The latest proposal from the Government is time-limiting support for young people without giving them the opportunity to train, after which they will simply be required to do community service. That is not an employment policy, but a policy for punishing the victims of the negligence and ineffectiveness of this Government.