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Question Time
SCOTTISH EXECUTIVE
General Questions
New Deal (Fife)
To ask the Scottish
Executive how the new deal is helping
young people in Fife into secure employment. (S2O-6523)
Christine
May (Central Fife) (Lab):
To ask the Scottish Executive how the new deal is helping young people in
Fife into secure employment. (S2O-6523)
The Deputy Minister
for Enterprise and Lifelong Learning (Allan Wilson):
Employment policy is reserved to the United Kingdom Government, which takes
the lead on funding and delivery of the new deal. The new deal for young
people is delivered by Jobcentre Plus and provides training, education, work
experience and job-search support to help long-term unemployed young people
to move into sustained employment. Since the new deal for young people
began, 5,190 young people in Fife have gone into jobs and 78 per cent of
those job outcomes were sustained.
Christine May:
The minister may be aware of figures that were released yesterday showing
that the financial services sector has grown by 6.4 per cent. Many clients
who have been recipients of new deal support in my constituency have found
jobs in the financial services sector. Will he outline what he fears would
result from any diminution of the new deal or from its being stopped?
Allan Wilson:
Indeed. Youth unemployment is down 79 per cent since January 1997 and down
57 per cent since January 1999. Such reductions are due in no small part to
the impact of the new deal. The member refers to the financial services
sector, which we debated only yesterday. Like other sectors, that sector
makes an important contribution to the growth of the economy, which of
course provides the job opportunities that have been taken up by those young
people.
Murdo Fraser (Mid
Scotland and Fife) (Con):
Given that the Government's figures show that barely a third of people who
go into the new deal programme find jobs that last more than 13 weeks, is it
not time to stop the appalling waste of money and use it to reduce taxation
on our overburdened businesses? Of course, that is not only the
Conservatives' policy but the policy of the Liberal Democrat Minister for
Enterprise and Lifelong Learning.
Allan Wilson:
Doing so would consign those young people to the dole. Young people were
familiar with being consigned to the dole during the Tory years and I
suspect that the people of Scotland and the United Kingdom do not wish to
return to that. Therefore, I do not see any prospect of a Tory Government
being in a position to scrap the new deal.
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