Labour's Shameful Betrayal Of Young Britons

The impact of Gordon Brown's recession has been devastating on young people. We just have to note a few of the key areas in which this Government have betrayed young people during the recession:

• We have the highest youth unemployment rate in Europe.
• We now have a record number of 16-24 year olds not in education, employment or training.
• The number of unemployed graduates is nudging 100,000.
• The number of apprenticeships has fallen by more than a third in one year.
• Over 150,000 university applicants didn't get a university place and, because of Government reforms, over 175,000 students still hadn't received student finance by mid October.
• The Government has placed caps on training funding, royally messed up the Further Education budget and forced many colleges to cut back on their course offerings.

Just when you thought that this Government could not worsen their betrayal of young people this morning, it has emerged this morning that they are secretly planning cuts in training of extreme severity. They are suggesting cutting £350 million off the training budget, affecting unemployed young people and also young people. Most of the advocated cuts actually affect front line services. It is shameful that the Government are considering such a move.

What we need is an expansion in training opportunities, so that this recession does not create a lost generation of young people. We need 100,000 new work based apprenticeships and training places. We need the creation of more Further Education places, to bolster the excellent work that FE already does. We need the creation of more university places to ensure that we can compete in a skills based global economy.

We must be investing in our future rather than, as Labour are doing, taken a scalpel to our potential.