To hear some of the criticisms from Government Members, one would think that the Labour party had no policies at all. We will restore Sure Start to what it was when we were in Government. We will continue to have a programme for modern apprenticeships and to invest in infrastructure. I should declare an interest here as chair of the all-party
Crossrail group. I have the Tunnelling and Underground Construction Academy on the edge of my constituency, on the banks of the River Roding. It is training up apprentices in great numbers and giving them high skills. It is taking many people who are registered as unemployed and providing them with quality training. That scheme was initiated under the previous Labour Government and is operating in a fantastic way. That is the kind of skills training we need.
Some Members from Scotland and elsewhere—I am not talking about my hon. Friends—think that the streets of London are paved with gold and that everything is perfect, but we have pockets of deprivation and some serious levels of unemployment, particularly in certain communities, in our capital city. Some young people have been persistently unemployed, and we need to boost their confidence by giving them the possibility of long-term permanent jobs.
Our jobs guarantee proposal will benefit young people and older people who have been registered as unemployed for more than two years. Yes, it does cost, of course it does. When I talk about investing in young people and unemployed people, I am not thinking about the youth training schemes that were used by Tory Governments 20 or 30 years ago, the zero-hours contracts or subsidising exploitative employers. What we need to do is provide real jobs and real hope. Many of these young people will not have experienced the structured life that can exist within the work environment. Many of them might have problems in their lives, whether from disabilities or from past alcohol or drug dependence, and some might have mental health problems, and they need to be integrated into our society and given hope. This proposal provides a route for people to get the experience of work and to go from that to permanent employment. That is why the Government are totally wrong to oppose it today.
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