Youth Employment
The next item of business is a debate on motion S4M-03295, in the name of Angela Constance, on young people and economic growth. I advise members that the debate is very tight for time. Minister, you have 13 minutes.
15:10
Last December, President Barroso, in response to growing unemployment across Europe, urged all member states to develop youth job plans, increase apprenticeship numbers, guarantee education or job opportunities for young people leaving school and redirect European funds to youth unemployment.
Well before that, the Scottish Government had responded to the situation by appointing me as a dedicated youth employment minister, committing to 25,000 new apprenticeships a year and announcing the opportunities for all initiative—an unprecedented guarantee of a place in education or training for all 16 to 19-year-olds who require one. We published our draft strategy for youth employment in January. Last month, we announced that we would direct £25 million of European funds to youth employment.
Tackling youth unemployment needs short-term responses, medium-term action and a longer-term strategy, all of which we articulated in our youth employment strategy, the final version of which will be published at the end of this month.
In the longer term, our investment in the early years and early intervention, the curriculum for excellence and the reform of our post-16 education system will ensure that any systematic problems in preparing young people for adulthood and the world of work are addressed. Over the next few months, we will develop further measures for the increasing number of young people aged 18 to 24 who are unable to secure jobs because of depressed demand in the labour market. Our short-term focus has been on action for those most acutely affected by the recession.
I am pleased to say that there has been a hugely positive response to the draft youth employment strategy, which has prompted many into making commitments. I have spent the past four months meeting hundreds of individuals, businesses, social enterprises and others to discuss the translation of those commitments into actions.
As a direct outcome of the national economic forum, Scottish Enterprise published its own youth employment plan, outlining actions for supporting businesses and industry sectors to recruit young people. The Scottish Council for Development and Industry has arranged a series of meetings with large employers to explore how it can encourage companies and their supply chains to support the young unemployed.
To extend employer engagement and drive action at a local level, I initiated a series of action forum events, starting in Lanarkshire in May. The events bring together local employers, young people and key partners in action-focused discussions on how we can work more effectively across all sectors to support youth employment.
On Tuesday, more than 100 people attended the Glasgow action forum at Willie Haughey’s City Refrigeration premises. In the next two weeks, I will lead similar events in Dumfries and Edinburgh. More will follow later in the year as I work across Scotland to drive home the message about supporting young Scots into work.
The public sector remains a key employer. Following a meeting of public sector chief executives in March, I received around 100 pledges to take on apprentices, offer work experience and student placements, and increase the proportion of young employees in the public sector. For example, Scottish Enterprise will double the number of employees under the age of 25 in its workforce, Highlands and Islands Enterprise will increase its proportion of young employees to 10 per cent and Perth and Kinross Council will increase its young workforce from 170 to 450 over the next five years.
Public procurement projects are also supporting the creation of job and training opportunities for our young people. Of the 380 new jobs that are being created through the new south Glasgow hospitals project, more than 80 so far have gone to 16 to 24-year-olds. Further, 140 of the 180 work placements have been set up for young people, and 90 apprenticeships will also be created.
Recognising the distinctive role that social enterprises and the third sector play in helping to deliver our youth employment ambitions, we have invested nearly £10 million to create employment opportunities in that sector through initiatives such as community jobs Scotland. In association with the Commonwealth games legacy fund, a further £5 million will support jobs and other opportunities through major sporting events. That is in addition to the recent announcement by the First Minister of £1 million for the Prince’s Trust to support young entrepreneurs and start-ups, which comes hot on the heels of the £750,000 that was given to the same organisation to support more young people into jobs, education and training, which will benefit up to 7,000 young Scots.
To refer to such commitments as “pocket-money announcements” is an insult to the thousands of young people who will benefit from them, and to the organisations that are offering work opportunities.
Will the jobs that the minister announced in the enterprise companies be new posts, or will the young people concerned replace older workers in those posts?
As Kenneth Macintosh knows, many organisations across the public sector are living with the reality of shrinking workforces. We know, as he should know, that young people are hit the hardest in a recession, and I think that we should welcome what organisations such as Perth and Kinross Council, Highlands and Islands Enterprise and Scottish Enterprise are doing. We have to ensure that others follow them, in order to make sure that more opportunities are provided for young people and that the proportion of young people that such organisations employ is increased. I am clear that the public sector, including the Scottish Government, has to lead by example.
Much of the £9 million that has been allocated to the local authority areas that are most affected by high youth unemployment rates and levels will support young people into sustainable jobs with local companies. That will support more young people such as Lauren, who attended my Lanarkshire action forum on youth employment last month. She was about to finish work experience with Serco but had no job to go to. The good news is that she started this week as an administration assistant with a local firm, Assure Alarms, which will receive a 50 per cent wage subsidy from South Lanarkshire Council. I am sure that we all agree that that is money well spent.
As I mentioned, we will use the £25 million of European money to provide support to small businesses across Scotland that are willing to step up and offer unemployed young people a job.
Last month, the Commission for Employment and Skills published a report that showed that employers in Scotland reported higher levels of work readiness among school and college leavers than those elsewhere in the United Kingdom did. Around a quarter of employers said that they had recruited someone straight from education in the past two to three years, and the majority were satisfied with their work readiness. That demonstrates the positive impression that many young people are making on their first venture into work. However, it also tells us that three quarters of employers do not recruit young people straight from school, college and university, and I want to encourage more to do so.
The Scottish Government has confidence in the positive role that young people can play in supporting economic growth. We demonstrate that confidence with our £72 million annual investment in modern apprenticeships, which enable young employees to develop valuable occupational skills in a range of industry sectors and give their employers the opportunity to demonstrate their confidence in them by investing £7 for every £1 of public money that is invested in apprenticeships.
Some employers have negative perceptions of young people and are reluctant to recruit anyone from that age group. Of course, there are some young people who do not possess the skills and aptitudes that are most valued by employers and I am committed to doing all that I can to ensure that we address that issue.
There are other reasons why some young people are not work ready. Lack of meaningful work experience presents a significant barrier to employment, so it is important that we persuade employers to offer high-quality work placements. To ensure that young people are ready for the workplace, we all need to help build their employability skills.
The employer-led certificate of work readiness, which is being developed by Skills Development Scotland, will recognise the work readiness of 16 to 19-year-olds. Central to the certificate will be 192 hours of work experience, which will be supervised in the workplace.
Wherever I go, I promote the business case for recruiting young people. Given the pressure on businesses in the current economic climate, recruiting young people might sound counterintuitive, but I have no doubt that companies need to invest in young people to achieve the business growth that will help them to thrive when the economy recovers.
I know from the many employers of all sizes that I have met over the past few months that there is a real appetite to support our youth employment agenda. I am determined, as is this Government, to take full advantage of that.
Investing in our young people brings returns to businesses in commitment and loyalty. Young people bring creativity, innovation and a willingness to learn, and their flexibility and adaptability help to enhance productivity.
I am driving that message home across Government and our agencies. I want us to lead by example and demonstrate the benefits of investing in young people. This year, the Scottish Government will offer young people more than 150 apprenticeship or work placement opportunities, and we are increasing our efforts to ensure that all public bodies do likewise.
The minister mentioned that she is spending £70 million on modern apprenticeships. The Parliament has to be accountable for that money. How many of the people who complete apprenticeships remain in full-time employment?
I know that Mr Findlay is a relatively new MSP but he, like everybody else in the chamber, should know that to be an apprentice in Scotland someone already has to be in a job. The modern apprenticeship scheme is the envy of the rest of the United Kingdom. It is sad that Mr Findlay does not know that we are operating the same modern apprenticeship scheme that operated under Labour. That is an important point. There are only two differences—[Interruption.]
Interventions from a sedentary position are not welcome.
In fact, we are doing three things differently. We are doing it bigger, we are doing it better, and we are increasing the priority given to 16 to 24-year-olds.
The completion rate, which indicates the proportion of young people who complete their modern apprenticeship, is at a record high of 75 per cent. Is that not money well spent? Surely Mr Findlay is not suggesting that we should spend less money on modern apprenticeships when 94,000 young people are seeking work.
I want us to unite in the Parliament and to encourage more young people to take up their opportunity, whether it be a college place or a modern apprenticeship. For Mr Findlay’s information, Skills Development Scotland’s board is already doing work to find out the facts, as opposed to the scaremongering and anecdotal evidence that some employers in some sectors discard young people after their training. Most employers are trying to survive in a difficult economic climate and they know that they must get value for money from their investment. Given that it costs £9,000 to train an engineer, why would any self-respecting employer get rid of a young modern apprentice?
There is no doubt that our young people face difficult times. I do not believe that anyone in the chamber wants to see a generation of young people defeated by economic circumstances that were not of their making. I include members such as Neil Findlay in that, even if their words do not always replicate that view.
This is a matter on which we should unite as a Parliament, because this is not the Scottish National Party’s modern apprenticeship scheme; it is Scotland’s modern apprenticeship scheme. At the Glasgow action forum this week, someone suggested that we should think of Scotland as a family firm, where we all take responsibility for developing young people in our employ. I think that that fits well with our strong tradition of community, and I urge members to join my campaign to persuade employers to support young Scots into work.
I move,
That the Parliament believes that recruiting young people makes good business sense and is crucial to sustainable economic growth; notes that the employers’ survey carried out by the UK Commission for Employment and Skills showed that the majority of employers in Scotland that recruited a young person straight from school, college or university were satisfied with their skills; welcomes the £25 million of European Structural Funds announced on 9 May 2012 to support youth employment over the next two years, and agrees that this should be focused on supporting young people into work in small and medium-sized businesses.
15:25
It may surprise the minister that Labour has a real willingness to work with the SNP Government on young people and economic growth. That is why, as a party, we supported the SNP’s motion back in February when we debated youth employment for the first time with the minister in her new role.
Will the member take an intervention?
I have spoken for literally 15 seconds. Mr FitzPatrick should give me a few more minutes to move on.
We will support the minister’s motion today. Labour’s amendment would simply add to the end of it our serious concerns regarding the ability of the modern apprenticeship programme to help the 100,000 young Scots who are currently desperate for work. I will get to the detail of that issue shortly; first, I want to say something about the tone of the debate.
Concerns that I have raised over the past couple of days have been shot down as scaremongering from a Labour Party press release. It has been said that I was “silly” and that I had made an outrageous attack. The First Minister lost his temper at First Minister’s question time today. He referred to a “disreputable” campaign and said that it was an “effrontery” for me to dare to even raise the matter. The Cabinet Secretary for Education and Lifelong Learning also lost his temper on “The Politics Show” on Sunday. He chose to shout down Isabel Fraser instead of taking on the arguments. Viewers were left thinking that he was furious because he had been found out.
If I was furious in any way, it was the fury of disappointment that a member of the Labour Party who attended the youth summit and who I thought would work with others to achieve jobs for young people wanted instead to take political advantage from them. That was disappointment in her as a spokesperson, but there is still an opportunity for her to redeem herself and separate herself from the empty vessels on her benches.
The reality is that the figures did not simply magic themselves into a Labour press release; they came from Skills Development Scotland, and they represent a clear set of facts. Last year, the Scottish Government delivered 26,427 modern apprenticeships. Of course we support the ambition to upskill the workforce, but the figures unequivocally show that 10,000 of those modern apprenticeships went to folk in work—to people who were well established in jobs for at least six months.
Which of those 10,000 people should not get the opportunity of a modern apprenticeship?
We would not take those opportunities away from young people. I will come back to Mr FitzPatrick’s point shortly with a suggestion about how the Government can continue what it is planning to do and also create opportunities for people in work.
Last Friday, I went to Asda at the Jewel in Edinburgh, where I met a number of young people who had worked for Asda for three years and had joined the Government’s modern apprenticeship programme. I would not for a second take away their opportunity to upskill in their work and to be invested in as employees. They carry themselves with pride and look forward to developing their careers with Asda. However, in the eyes of the public, that is in-work vocational training, not apprenticeships. That is where the con at the heart of the debate lies.
Grahame Smith of the Scottish Trades Union Congress raised that con in his opinion piece in the Daily Record this week.
Will the member take an intervention on that point?
No. I am sorry, but there is a lot to get through. Mr Gibson will have the joy of listening to me close the debate as well, so if he speaks in the debate, I will seek to rebut some of his points then.
In his opinion piece in the Daily Record, Mr Smith said that one thing that the Scottish Government could do is ensure that for every apprenticeship that was created for somebody in work, it created another apprenticeship for somebody who was not in work. That would be a very constructive way for the Government to proceed, and I look forward to hearing what it has to say about the STUC’s position.
I want to put on record—and I do not do so lightly—that I had to fight tooth and nail to drag the facts out of Skills Development Scotland. Letters went unanswered and e-mails and calls were ignored. Many of my Labour colleagues have had a similar experience when dealing with SDS. Either it does not have the resources that it needs to answer queries or it is wilfully obstructing access. Both situations are unacceptable and I strongly urge the minister to address the point in her closing speech.
I take seriously any issue that any member of the Scottish Parliament has with an agency over which I have charge. I give the member that commitment.
Will the member have the good grace to acknowledge that this is the first year in which SDS has captured the data in detail? Surely she will agree that it is good news that, according to her press release, 81 per cent of 16 to 19-year-olds started a modern apprenticeship within six months of entering employment.
It is interesting that the minister says that this is the first year that SDS has collected figures in such detail. At First Minister’s question time, the First Minister referred to figures from 2006. I asked the Scottish Parliament information centre where the figures came from and learned that they came from a survey of people who had been through training and apprenticeship programmes. They were not like-for-like figures.
On the myth about 2006, I say to the minister that back in 2006 Labour did not count level 2 modern apprenticeships in the form in which they existed at the time. That is fact 1—and it is level 2 apprenticeships that account for the significant growth in the number of modern apprenticeships. The important fact is that in 2006 youth unemployment in Scotland was 60,000, whereas now the figure is 100,000. The Government says that I have a cheek in criticising a programme that is exactly the same as the Labour one; I think that the Government has a cheek in taking the same approach to apprenticeships in a time of crisis as Labour took when the economy was booming.
The SNP cannot escape the simple fact that it said that it would create 25,000 modern apprenticeships to tackle youth unemployment in this country, when the reality is that it is not doing so and 100,000 young Scots who are without jobs are paying the price.
If the minister insists on harking back to when Labour was in power, let me say to her that, according to figures that are published on the Scottish Government website, Labour spent £60 million in 2006-07 on creating 15,869 apprenticeships, whereas the SNP is spending £72 million to create 26,427 apprenticeships. The SNP is spending £1,000 less per apprentice throughout Scotland. In truth, the commitment to 25,000 modern apprenticeships is a slogan that works for Alex Salmond but it is not a policy that is working for Scotland’s 100,000 young unemployed people.
In the debate in February I asked the minister to take forward and report to the Parliament on three things. I said that long-term youth unemployment had doubled in the six months before the debate. It has now quadrupled. Jenny Marra will talk at greater length about that. I asked the minister for a strategy to address long-term youth unemployment, but the Parliament has yet to see a finalised strategy for youth employment—and the minister has spent all her money. I also asked the minister about procurement, which Iain Gray will talk about in his speech.
I repeat my call for the Scottish Government to be straight with people. That is the very least that 100,000 young Scots can expect.
I move amendment S4M-03295.2, to insert at end:
“; is concerned that current efforts to tackle youth unemployment through the modern apprenticeship (MA) programme are falling short of the needs of 100,000 unemployed young people in Scotland, with 10,000 MAs undertaken in 2011-12 by those in jobs for six months or more; is further concerned by the spike in long-term youth unemployment, now four times greater than last year, and considers that Scotland needs a finalised youth employment strategy that not only gets young people to work, but equips them with the skills to compete in a global labour market.”
15:34
I welcome this debate on youth employment. I was a lecturer for 20 years before I became an MSP, so I am fully aware of the enormous benefit of training and education to people of all ages. I was hoping for a more constructive debate—but there is still time.
In the debate in February I welcomed the appointment of a dedicated Minister for Youth Employment and the fact that the Parliament would get regular updates on the issue. I also welcomed the social enterprise fund, raised issues to do with literacy levels in schools, expressed concern about the £33 million cut in further education funding, and highlighted the employment levels and rate of positive destinations, including further study, for Scottish graduates, which are much better than the UK average.
The response from the Minister for Youth Employment was:
“I will not take any lectures from the Conservatives on youth or adult unemployment.”—[Official Report, 9 February 2012; c 6365.]
There was no analysis of any of the content of my speech and no response to any issue in my speech. I trust and hope that today either the minister or Mike Russell will, when summing up this hugely important debate, respond to the contributions of MSPs across the chamber rather than making dismissive statements.
Sir Tom Hunter gave an inspirational speech at the business in the Parliament conference last week. He reminded us that the business birth rate in Scotland is exactly the same as it was in 2003. Given that the Government’s motion refers to
“supporting young people into work in small and medium-sized businesses”,
I hope that it will enhance dialogue with small businesses to give them the opportunity to get more apprentices and to support them in growing their businesses. Of course, it is not just the quantity of apprenticeships that counts, because the quality of the training and the ability to transfer skills also help to keep young people in the job market.
I noticed that the education secretary was at the business in the Parliament conference and nodded positively when Sir Tom Hunter emphasised the need for the education system to be more closely aligned to the world of work. We fully support that, given the points that the minister has made.
I am glad to say that that work is well under way with the college reforms. In particular, I hope that the member will reflect on a core message from Tom Hunter, which was the need to encourage entrepreneurialism. That message permeated the whole of last Friday’s conference. The Government is deeply engaged in supporting innovation with organisations such as Entrepreneurial-Spark.
I am delighted about that. There was some criticism about how entrepreneurialism was encouraged in the past, and I am pleased to hear the education secretary’s positive response.
Sir Tom Hunter also pointed out just how much can be achieved by “a can-do attitude”. I would find it helpful if the Government could lead from the front with a can-do, positive attitude instead of constantly carping and criticising other political parties and the Westminster Government.
Tom Hunter talked of people turning up their noses at vocational education and also said that university lecturing careers should be based on jobs for students and not on research papers. That was undoubtedly food for thought. It is shameful that the vocational budget in further education has been cut by more than £33 million by this Government.
Tom Hunter also said that
“it is the Government’s responsibility to paint the picture”.
That was in response to the hopelessness felt by so many people in Scotland. I will come back to that, because this is not only about jobs and about being good for business but about confidence and self-esteem for the individual.
I will quote what were probably the two most important points made by Tom Hunter that will remain with me. First, instead of “political point scoring”, politicians need to co-operate, innovate and form successful, positive partnerships. We are all committed to the reduction of youth unemployment. I do not think that there is an MSP in the chamber who does not want a successful, positive partnership.
The second important point that Tom Hunter made was about the need for
“maturity and decency to put party politics aside”
and deliver for Scotland. He asked us please to put party politics aside—we will all be with the Government on that one.
The first line in the Government’s motion is:
“That the Parliament believes that recruiting young people makes good business sense”.
Of course it makes good business sense, but it does more than that.
Research by the Prince’s Trust this year confirms that the emotional health of young people is affected by unemployment: they are more likely to feel stressed, down and depressed. Research by Bell and Blanchflower in 2010 states that
“unemployment is a stressful life event that directly reduces individual well-being.”
It also states that
“Unemployment increases susceptibility to malnutrition, illness, mental stress, and loss of self-esteem, and increases the risk of depression. The unemployed also appear to be at higher risk of committing suicide”
and of being in a poor physical condition. I would simply add that to the Government’s motion. I fully appreciate that employing young people “makes good business sense”, it does far more than that.
You must close now, please.
I close by saying that in its last four years, the previous Administration had 3,000 more apprentices per year than this Administration has had in its first four years. I have the figures, if members would like to see them.
I move amendment S4M-03295.3, to insert at end:
“; believes that there needs to be greater dialogue between the Scottish Government and small businesses; believes that there should be a greater focus on the quality of the training and apprenticeships provided, rather than just on the numbers of places available, so that there is greater emphasis on ensuring that training programmes are tailored to the needs of the individual young people; views with concern that there has been a lack of analysis when deciding how to allocate the £30 million youth unemployment strategy budget particularly in terms of the lack of clear guidance to local authorities on what they are expected to achieve, and is disappointed that the Scottish Government policy was unimaginative in relation to raising private sector capital and expertise to complement the £19 million allocated thus far.”
We are extremely tight for time, so speeches of six minutes or less, including interventions, will be welcome.
15:40
I rise in support of the Scottish Government’s motion. As the minister set out, the SNP in Government has done everything in its power to tackle youth unemployment. The Scottish Government is investing in record numbers of modern apprenticeships, which I will come to later. Unlike its counterpart in England, this Government is maintaining the education maintenance allowance. The Government is also guaranteeing all 16 to 19-year-olds an employment or training opportunity, under opportunities for all.
Clearly, the Government has achieved and, indeed, exceeded its pledge to deliver 25,000 modern apprenticeships in 2011-12 and has invested £72 million in the process. The Government will continue to deliver 25,000 new modern apprenticeships each year for the rest of this parliamentary session. Of course, unlike in England, those modern apprenticeships are linked to real jobs. In relation to that, I will mention the presentation that was given to us this morning by Donald MacRae, the chief economist at the Bank of Scotland. He said that, over the past 12 months, the Bank of Scotland’s labour market barometer indicated that Scotland’s labour market performance is better than that of the UK as a whole. When he was asked what he attributed that to, he cited the strength of the oil and gas sector, the strength of renewables, and he said that he believed that the Scottish Government’s modern apprenticeship programme had a role in it. He also encouraged a plan A+, as he put it, or, as I would call it, a plan B, to address the fundamental problem of growth in the economy—that is a message for members of the UK coalition Government. He also suggested that there might be a case for delaying the UK Government plans to restore balance in public sector finances. I would be interested in Mary Scanlon’s view on that.
Skills Development Scotland data at the community planning partnership level indicate that in the Scottish Borders area, some 258 modern apprenticeships were completed in April to December 2011. Of those, 83 per cent went on to positive destinations. Historically, it has proved more difficult to generate MA enrolments in the Borders, due to the economy being more than usually dependent on SMEs to provide such opportunities. However, the figures, which show that there are 437 modern apprenticeships in training as at December 2011, indicate that we are on track to get a much better performance in the Borders. I am confident that with a number of local initiatives that are now under way, we have a good chance to meet or exceed what would be a pro rata number of about 500 modern apprenticeships for the area.
I wish to highlight a crucial issue that is at the heart of the Government’s motion—that of replacement demand. We often talk about growth in the economy and the increase in the number of people being employed in a sector. Even when employment in a sector is in decline or static, however, there is always replacement demand: a stream of younger people are needed to replace those who are retiring at the end of their careers. That has been a strong driver in a number of important initiatives. In the Finance Committee yesterday, the Minister for Youth Employment cited the oil and gas sector, which has proactively taken competition out of the labour market and decided to pool its resources to ensure that there is a sufficient supply of apprentices to meet emerging needs. Competition from the renewables sector has obviously played a part in that, too.
As the minister has visited Hawick Knitwear and the Johnstons of Elgin plant in Hawick, he knows that the Scottish Borders knitwear group training association has pooled together a group of 14 employers—soon to expand to 23—who have also set aside their competitive interests in favour of the future of their sector and decided to ensure that they provide a sufficient pool of trainees and apprenticeships. When we met the apprentices, of whom there are a hundred—it is hoped that that figure will expand to 150—about 60 to 80 per cent of those the minister spoke to had come directly from Jobcentre Plus, rather than having had word-of-mouth referral or having worked there already. That shows the importance of such schemes in extending opportunities to those who are furthest from the labour market.
The minister has dealt with most of Kezia Dugdale’s comments this week but, in response to them, I will quote Graeme Ogilvy, who is the director of the construction industry training board, ConstructionSkills Scotland. He said:
“Employers enrol their apprentices onto the programme at the start of the college term in September. That should not stop us hiring young people earlier in the year and giving them a job. Any change would deny these young people the chance of paid employment. You have to ask if that would be useful right now. The Scottish Government is right to keep the eligibility criteria for funding without any qualifying criteria such as time in the job.”
Will the member give way?
I will when I finish the quote. It continues:
“This meets business requirements, gives more people the opportunity to train to industry standards and reduces unnecessary red tape that hinders success.”
I will take the intervention now.
Forgive me, but the member is in his last minute.
I apologise to Kezia Dugdale—I had not noticed the time going by.
I commend the Government for continuing the adopt-an-apprentice scheme. The Finance Committee heard how important that scheme has been in the construction sector. As I said, the sector has declined in some parts, but has been more stable in others. However, a number of people who were taken on as apprentices have been made redundant during the recession. The figures suggest that 6,204 apprentices in several sectors were made redundant between April 2009 and 2012. The scheme has been vital, as it has ensured that 52 per cent of those people were found new posts, many of which were in the construction sector. The Government has undertaken to ensure that young people who do not find a place under such a scheme have positive destinations through other training or employment opportunities.
15:46
The belief that the future capacity of this country to thrive is no more or less than the potential that is embodied in our young people is undoubtedly an idea that unites rather than divides us. The Parliament should be a place where we come together with the Government to meet our obligation to remove any barrier and to open any door that lies between younger generations and their opportunity to be all that they can be. That is why, six months ago, in Labour’s last debate under my leadership, we called for a new minister to take the issue of youth employment to the heart of Government. That the Government responded with the post that Ms Constance now occupies is very much to its credit.
Just as we forged positive agreement in the heat of debate that day, we did so back in 2009 when, in the course of a fractious budget that took two attempts to pass, the First Minister agreed to Labour’s demands to end two years of cuts in the apprenticeship programme and to begin to increase it again. It is exactly because our support for the minister’s task is central to our beliefs that we cannot but speak out when the Government’s actions fall short of what our common purpose demands. That is why we cannot stand by when the figures show that not enough of the new opportunities that are created are going to unemployed young Scots and that the apprenticeship programme does not complement the economy’s needs in sectors such as engineering or renewables.
The member talks about a reduction in the number of apprenticeships but, in 2005-06, there were 20,196 modern apprenticeships in Scotland whereas, the following year, under Labour, there were 15,869, which is a fall of 21 per cent. Surely, before the member criticises the SNP he should criticise the Labour Administration that was in power at that time.
No, Mr Gibson, my criticism is that the Government needs to spend less time counting apprenticeships and more time making those apprenticeships really count.
Colleagues from other parties have said that ours is a disreputable argument. However, the disreputable argument that has been mounted this week is the one that says that, because we voted against the budget, we voted against apprenticeships. That is not only disreputable, but infantile. It is the political equivalent of the argument that, because Scotland beat France a couple of years ago, if France wins Euro 2012, Scotland will really have won it. We voted against the budget because it would not grow the economy; it would cut tens of thousands of public sector jobs; and it would cut teachers from our schools and nurses from our hospitals—and we were right. There were many reasons to vote against the budget, but apprenticeships were certainly not one of them.
The minister made a number of very good points, including the need for employers to look beyond the recession. However, that is not happening. For example, 1,000 tradespeople leave the electrical industry every year but there are only 400 apprentices. When the upturn comes, that gap will mean a massive skills shortage. I know that the problem with increasing those numbers is the fact that apprentices need jobs—the Government is right about employed status. However, those jobs should be coming from public sector contracts. No matter whether they are capital or service contracts, unless we ensure that local and small companies get their share of what is available and unless we insist that every single contract creates opportunities for young people to get off the dole, we will waste the most powerful mechanism that we have.
I know that the minister agrees, because her draft strategy has at its heart a sustainable procurement bill. Why did she not mention the bill today? Where is it? What are we waiting for? Every day, contracts are being let, still aggregated and still tendered 92 per cent on price alone. We know what works. In Wales, public contracts are let 70 per cent on the basis of social benefit, not price; Glasgow has its apprenticeship guarantee and graduate employment promise; and in Falkirk procurement was used to create hundreds of apprenticeships, which were filled with youngsters lifted from the unemployment scrapheap. The minister herself highlighted an example from Perth and Kinross Council. Why can every single council in the land not do the same? If the Government had the political will to force every council to stop increasing council tax, why can it not put the same effort into getting every council to emulate Glasgow and Falkirk and stop the rise in youth unemployment?
The minister is right to say that she needs to reach back into schools to see what is happening there. She also mentioned curriculum for excellence, but an unintended consequence of that move is emerging right now to undermine her efforts. Teachers are telling us that because of the way in which course choices operate, pupils are dropping all sciences at the end of secondary 2. On Sunday, I heard Mike Russell say that curriculum for excellence will not change the laws of physics, but science teachers are telling him that, as a result of it, fewer pupils will learn the laws of physics. In three years’ time, we will not be able to find the very scientists, engineers and technicians that we need to drive our economic growth.
You must close now, Mr Gray.
Because there is so much common ground and common purpose, we should support the Government’s motion. However, we need an agreed strategy—in fact, we need it yesterday, not tomorrow—as well as plans with more depth, dynamism and detail and the right focus. That is why, if we are serious, we must support Labour’s amendment.
15:53
Gordon Brown once said that there would be no more boom or bust in the economy—how wrong he was. I wonder what the Labour Party really thinks of his legacy, which has left us with a Con-Dem coalition whose only solution to the economic quagmire is austerity. I argue that its economic and financial medicine is a poison that is causing even more damage.
As in the 1980s, our young people are feeling the worst effects of the situation. In the early Thatcher years, we saw the dole queues lengthen and millions thrown on to the scrapheap of economic inactivity. As a young man, I watched many of my school mates struggle to get a job; indeed, many of them were forced into the YTS, which, in my area, was commonly known as “Yon Thatcher’s”—and I cannot say the final word, but there are seven shades of it.
However, unlike the 1980s, the people of Scotland now have their own Government. Although it has limited powers, it has acted to try to get as many of our young people as possible into work, education or training; invested around £72 million last year to support 26,427 modern apprenticeships; is spending double the amount spent by the last Labour-Liberal Executive on apprenticeships and training; and has doubled the total number of modern apprenticeships and other training opportunities from 55,288 in 2006-07 to 112,501 in 2010-11.
I am interested to hear that, according to Mr Stewart, his Government has doubled investment in apprenticeships and training. The figure of £35 million has been mentioned in Ms Constance’s press releases, too. As the Scottish Government’s website shows, investment has increased from £60 million, not £35 million, to £72 million. Perhaps the member could explain where his figure of £35 million comes from.
That is the official figure that I have; £72 million is more than double that £35 million.
Nothing that we have heard from Labour is about common cause. The reality is that the modern apprenticeship scheme is exactly the same scheme that existed under the Labour-Liberal Executive; the only difference, as the minister has pointed out, is that the scheme is now bigger and better and is doing the job.
Iain Gray rose—
I have very little time, Mr Gray. I have already taken an intervention.
We have heard some real nonsense. During his speech, Mr Gray talked about the budget, but the fact is that Labour tried to vote down the budget, which included provision for 25,000 modern apprenticeships.
Will the member give way on that point?
I may take an intervention from Mr Smith later.
On 10 February last year, John Swinney said that he had offered Labour
“all they had asked for and more ... This, apparently, is not enough for Labour. Every single thing I was asked to deliver by the Labour Party I offered the Labour Party. They have now been caught red-handed in a state of total hypocrisy.”
Today, we are again getting total hypocrisy from the Labour Party. When Ms Dugdale sums up, I would like to hear exactly what the Labour Party wants to do in this sphere. Her amendment does not spell everything out. Does she intend to deny those folk who are already in employment the chance to gain a modern apprenticeship? If she does, I would like her to meet some of the folk in Aberdeen whom I met recently, who have benefited from being on the modern apprenticeship scheme.
During his speech, Mr Gray also said that he would like every council to have a youth employment strategy and a way of dealing with the issue. I completely and utterly agree with him. I urge him to ask his colleagues in Aberdeen to back the motion of Councillor Gordon Townson on his plan for a youth employment strategy for Aberdeen. Thus far, it seems that they will ignore it.
Surely Mr Stewart is not suggesting that a party that ran Aberdeen City Council for the past five years, during which time it failed to introduce a youth employment strategy, can criticise a party that has been in control for five weeks. I look forward to Aberdeen City Council’s youth employment strategy, because the change in that council is the best thing that could have happened.
There is an easy answer for Mr Gray. There were measures in place to deal with youth employment in Aberdeen, although they did not amount to a full strategy. The SNP’s manifesto contained a commitment to deliver a full youth employment strategy to tie in with the Government’s youth employment strategy, but it seems that the Labour Party and its Tory and independent allies do not want to go down that route. Labour is again being hypocritical.
I do not want people to be put on the scrap heap, as happened in my youth in the 80s. I want to hear from Ms Dugdale what she would do about those 10,000 folk who are on the modern apprenticeship scheme and who were previously in employment. Does she intend to deny them that opportunity? She should be straight, not hypocritical.
15:59
I welcome the debate and fully support the motion.
I begin by dispensing with the notion that Ms Dugdale spun—which the First Minister deplored this morning—when she said that one of the Scottish Government’s flagship policies was a blatant con. She compounded that by attacking SDS. I do not know when she last visited SDS; I did so two weeks ago, when I went through all its figures, and I feel it to be a highly robust organisation.
I do not know how many apprenticeships Ms Dugdale has managed in her vast breadth of business experience. I only know that I have started and managed very many. Although I never question where her heart lies on the issue of the young unemployed, I am afraid that I do question her head and her knowledge.
In the businesses with which I have been associated, I would never have started an apprenticeship programme and planned for an apprentice until we—he or she, me and my managers—were absolutely sure that the career or trade to be followed was a suitable vehicle for the person’s individual aspirations.
Will the member take an intervention?
I ask the member to let me make the point.
As our colleague Mr Michael McMahon, who is not in the chamber now, said at the Finance Committee just three weeks ago:
“We should not try to fit square pegs into round holes.”—[Official Report, Finance Committee, 23 May 2012; c 1213.]
To do that is irresponsible and uncaring for the young person involved.
Mr Gray said that we are fixated on numbers. He might be fixated on numbers, but we are fixated on young people.
In the member’s experience, what he said might be the case, but in the experience of most people who run businesses, an apprentice is someone who goes through a job interview procedure and is then employed, and the vast majority of apprentices, until the numbers that we have seen in recent years, have been people who were not in work before they embarked on the apprentice training programme.
I will say this with as little arrogance as I can summon up. Having been involved with some 23 companies, I would like to put that experience alongside the non-statement that the member has just made. It clearly shows that he does not understand the process. I am surprised by that.
It is compatibility of career planning and responsibility of management that ensure that our existing employees can more seamlessly move into a fully supported, trained situation in which they become happy and contented employees. That is why we have 35,265 apprenticeships today.
That said, let us look at the more substantive elements that will marry our young people to economic growth. At university level, as Universities Scotland has stated, employability is already embedded as a core part of the learning and teaching strategies. Companies that have invested, are investing and are reinvesting in Scotland cite the strength of Scotland’s young graduates as a key factor. Any member who is in doubt about that should ask FMC Technologies, enStratus, State Street or Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft and hear them declare that our young graduates are the reason for those companies coming to Scotland.
The reform of our colleges to focus on supportive learning and training in the industry sectors that dominate our economic strategy—food and drink, aerospace, engineering, tourism and so on—is key to the long-term employability of our young people. There has been a shift to an understanding that vocational education is as important an element as a university degree in creating an efficient physical infrastructure to support that economic strategy, yet we still hear complaints. Additionally, programmes such as opportunities for all, get ready for work and training for work and the statement that has been made on Government procurement policies are critical to the foundation of the young in employment.
I will not rehearse all the funding or beneficially comparative statistics that show that we are in the right direction of travel regarding young people and economic growth. It is not we who currently have our foot on the economic brakes. In these straitened times, which are not of our making, I applaud the wonderful words of Tom Hunter, which Mary Scanlon mentioned. In the chamber last Friday, he called for a new entrepreneurial enlightenment, particularly dedicated to the young. To achieve that and to think outside the box is the better preserve of the young.
In a time of serious skills shortages in some of our key developing industries, such as renewables, it is time to educate the teachers, the lecturers, the parents and even some Labour members by having our growing businesses invite them in to see and share the excitement, the potential and the future economic capacity of our country. Let them then encourage their children and their students to embrace that and do the same.
Above all, let us further engage the young in entrepreneurship through the development of our social enterprises and collectives and create a hunger in them to develop new skills and new wealth, serving and saving their communities as they do so. Even in these difficult financial times there is an opportunity for us all to come together without fear, favour or tribalism to boost the future of our young, rather than have conflict that demoralises them. By so doing, we can boost their employment prospects and our economy.
16:05
As someone with 25 years of experience working in training, I appreciate the chance to speak in this debate. Members on all sides can agree that there is no more pressing issue facing Scotland than the position of our young people in this challenging and changing economy. In every part of my region there are above-average levels of youth unemployment, and news continues to emerge of yet more redundancies at major employers, with Phillips announcing job losses in Hamilton this week.
The fundamental problem in our economy is a lack of aggregate demand, which is worsened by a self-defeating deficit-reduction strategy. The Chancellor’s fiscal policies are sapping not just consumer confidence, but investor confidence and the UK economy is being pushed back into recession. As we all know, recession and contraction in the economy puts young people in a vulnerable position.
Before addressing what the Scottish Government can do in response, I will briefly refer to what can be done by others, such as employers, volunteers and even members of the Scottish Parliament. You do not need to be the Minister for Youth Employment to make a difference. For example, last week in South Lanarkshire I hosted a jobs fair in partnership with Jobcentre Plus. It was telling that some exhibitors were so overwhelmed with inquiries that they ran out of application forms and had to photocopy new ones. They all commented on the calibre of the jobseekers, many of whom had qualifications or had previously been in good jobs.
I also convened a number of very successful meetings between Skills Development Scotland and ScotRail at which we discussed what more local employers could do to help. As a result of those meetings, ScotRail entered into a partnership with South Lanarkshire College and won a contract from SDS to deliver a bespoke course for young people in my region through the college learning programme. Those young people will receive 192 hours of teaching and 190 hours of practical work experience, combining a course with relevant and worthwhile work-based learning.
I reiterate that as members of the Scottish Parliament we can make a difference, and we must. We can make a legitimate input into finding solutions in Scotland’s struggle with unemployment. Since every member has a part to play, every member should at least be invited to the regional action forums on youth employment that are taking place across the country. As a member representing Central Scotland, I was disappointed to learn that none of Lanarkshire’s regional MSPs was invited to the action forum meeting that took place last month.
I offer Ms McCulloch an apology for that. My concern was that, given the number of regional MSPs who have an interest in Lanarkshire, we would end up with 30 MSPs at the event and squeeze out other people. However, on reflection, Ms McCulloch’s point is well made. As we move forward, I can give her an assurance that that will not happen again and that all MSPs will be included in the events. If we need to get extra chairs, so be it.
I thank the minister for that statement. I will certainly be there when other such events take place.
There has been much debate about the Scottish Government’s commitment to modern apprenticeships. However, I make it clear as someone with a lifetime of experience in training that I have the highest regard for the modern apprenticeship programme in Scotland. I know that everyone across the chamber shares that sentiment. No one here today would criticise the integrity of the modern apprenticeships or the achievement of the apprentices. It is wrong for any member or any minister to suggest otherwise. While no one doubts the quality of the programme and the benefits that it can bring to individuals and employers, I urge the Scottish Government to look again at the bigger picture in its youth employment strategy.
My party’s central ambition for the economy is full employment. That means more jobs now and in the future, and investment in our young people’s skills so that they are far better placed to take advantage of the upturn when the recovery comes. We know from Scottish Government data on destinations for school leavers that, although the number of school leavers who are going into higher and further education has increased, the number who are going into training has shown little change and the number who are going into employment is in serious decline.
Training programmes are crucial if we are to capture young people who are furthest from the labour market, boost their employability and put them on the path to real work. Scotland’s youth employment strategy must make it clear how training programmes—in their entirety—support a strategic skills pipeline that is sensitive to the needs of different sectors and localities. The Government must be forthcoming with that information if the Parliament is to have the confidence that it is making best use of the welcome but limited European social fund priority 5 funding.
The Scottish Government must also be more forthright about its intentions regarding procurement. Today’s strategy again refers to public procurement and the use of community benefit clauses in securing employment for young people, and it restates the Scottish Government’s commitment to a sustainable procurement bill. However, the test of that commitment will be its actions, and not its words. I appeal to the minister to ensure that a comprehensive bill on procurement is introduced as soon as possible. We cannot accept excuses or any more delays.
The member must close, please.
In a challenging and changing economy, we need the Scottish Government to make good on its promise of an all-Scotland response to youth employment.
Thank you so much.
16:11
Although modern apprenticeships are a key part of the Government’s programme, we risk losing focus on the fact that the issue is wider than simply modern apprenticeships. If we do not recognise that, we lose sight of the bigger picture.
We must not get into quasi-Orwellian language in referring to modern apprenticeships as if some are more valuable than others. All apprenticeships have value, so to use terms such as “making modern apprenticeships meaningful”, which, by extension of logic, implies that some, or all, are meaningless, is unhelpful and not to the credit of the members who made those remarks, although the implication may have been unintentional.
Will the member take an intervention?
No, thank you. I have less than six minutes and I have a few points that I want to make.
The Finance Committee has been taking evidence on employability. We are grateful to the minister for coming before the committee yesterday in its final evidence session. I raised a number of points during that session, although some would say that it was more banging a drum than raising a point. I want to put on record some of my thoughts on the work that might be done on the subjects of stigmatisation and role models.
An area that I have been keen to explore—it was raised by Who Cares? Scotland at the Finance Committee—is looked-after children, and how we deal with people who are leaving care, given the current economic situation in which job opportunities are not always available. For whatever reason, a stigma is attached to people who have left a care setting when they apply for a job, particularly if they are up against four or five individuals who do not have that background. We must do all that we can to break that stigma.
One way to do that is to have local authorities using their corporate parenting role positively. As parents, we aspire to give our children the best opportunities and, if we operated a family firm, we would try to find opportunities in that firm for our children, if possible. Local authorities should consider this from a corporate parenting perspective. I commend the work that has been done by Aberdeen City Council in offering work experience placements to looked-after children within the council organisation, and I hope that other local authorities might consider doing likewise.
Beyond that, we need to consider whether there are opportunities to use role models—people who have left a care setting and are in the world of work. They do not have to be high fliers but can be people who hold down a steady job and who can share their experiences and act as mentors and role models, if they wish to do so. That is something that we also need to look at positively.
Another area of stigmatisation is the mentality that we have had for too long in Scotland that certain jobs are undesirable. They become categorised as those jobs that people will end up doing if they do not stick in at school. We need to break that cycle and stigma, and use positive role models to do that. At one of the Finance Committee meetings, representatives of Asda told us that their chief executive started in the company as a shelf stacker with one O level. That is the kind of person we need to have operating as a positive role model to show people that, although they should aspire to leave school with academic qualifications, it should not be seen as the end of the world if they do not achieve that outcome.
The minister spoke about the stigmatisation of young people in the difficult views that businesses sometimes have. That came across in the written evidence to the committee from GTG Training, and it was disappointing that it was not able to attend the committee to be questioned about the evidence that it gave about the employability of young people. When businesses identify young people they feel are not ready for employment, they absolutely must signpost them to where they can receive training and support to make them more employable. If they do not do that, those young people will just become caught in some kind of ridiculous merry-go-round or pass-the-parcel from employer to employer. They might not be able to access the workforce but neither can they access the assistance that is required to give them the necessary skills to get them into the workforce.
The minister spoke about meaningful work experience and engagement with employers. I commend the work that is being done by the schools careers industry partnership in Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire. An article appeared on the STV Aberdeen website yesterday that said that hundreds of youngsters are set to benefit from a training programme that will help school leavers to find work. The scheme is partially funded by local authorities and through sponsorship from the oil and gas and subsea sectors. It seeks to provide young people with skills, training and assistance to get the skills that they will require to enter the world of work when they leave school. Alastair Fraser, the director of Coaching Training Consultancy, said of GTG Training:
“Essentially they were saying that youngsters aren’t used to work or fit to work. Our experience in working with more than 800 young people is that they need help and support to sell themselves well.”
The work that is being done by the schools careers industry partnership in the north-east should be looked at and replicated elsewhere. We owe it to ourselves to help our young people in every way possible.
16:17
As the minister will know from February’s debate on youth employment, I very much welcome her appointment; the development of a youth employment strategy; and the investment, including the £25 million of European structural funds, to address a serious and complex problem that touches every part of the country. Iain Gray was absolutely right to say that addressing the problem of youth unemployment sits at the top of the political agenda and the objective is shared right across Parliament. That is reflected in the motion and, I would argue, the amendments, both of which the Liberal Democrats will support.
Although I applaud the fact that Angela Constance has focused on the issue and that the Scottish Government has made many commitments, concerns are emerging about the way in which they are playing out in practice. Other members have touched on some of those concerns. For example, one of the key strands of the Government’s strategy for tackling youth unemployment is the promise to create 25,000 modern apprenticeships each year, which is undoubtedly an ambitious commitment. Rather more worryingly, earlier this year, the minister was unable to tell the Education and Culture Committee how that is to be achieved, what proportion of the overall number of apprenticeships will be taken up in the public sector, and what demand there is in different parts of the private sector and among businesses of different size and scale. The impression was that the Government has set an eye-catching target but is less than sure about how it is to be met or where the demand is to come from. If that is the case, the risk must be that the target becomes the primary focus, driving policy and its delivery, and that steps will be taken by those who act on behalf of ministers to ensure that the targets are hit, no matter what or how.
I could not agree more with Liam McArthur on that point. Would he be interested to know that almost 13,000 of the modern apprenticeships that were delivered last year were delivered during the final quarter, which suggests a target-focused culture?
That observation underscores what I am saying. The risk is that resources are not invested in the most appropriate place and that the policy intention of ministers is not delivered.
From meetings with various businesses, I am aware that changes to the funding arrangements for modern apprenticeships are also creating practical difficulties. Understandably, much of the attention has been on meeting the needs of 16 to 19-year-olds, but it is not until they are in their 20s that many young people decide that they want to undertake an apprenticeship. That is the message that I got when I visited a major employer last month, yet changes that were made to the funding rules earlier this year appear to have reduced the level of support for 20 to 24-year-olds to half what is available for 16 to 19-year-olds who take up a modern apprenticeship. It was pointed out to me that encouraging more of those in the older age group to take up apprenticeships and so progress would free up opportunities for 16 to 19-year-olds.
Will the member take an intervention?
I am afraid that I do not have time.
Kezia Dugdale talked about the number of those taking up modern apprenticeships who are already in work, in many cases for six months or longer. That has elicited a fierce response from the Government. The normally phlegmatic Mike Russell appeared at risk of doing himself a mischief over the weekend, so exercised was he about those claims. Indeed, it was a mischief that the First Minister was in danger of self-inflicting earlier this afternoon. For the record, I am in no doubt about the enormous advantages to young people of undertaking an apprenticeship while in work. However, ministers refer to the 25,000 apprenticeships as a key plank in their strategy to tackle youth unemployment but are unclear about how and where the target will be met. It is hardly surprising, then, that the public assume that the policy is targeted directly at reducing the number of 100,000 young people whom the Government’s strategy estimates to be unemployed.
That is not to say that good things are not happening. Just this week, I was lucky enough to attend the YouthLink Scotland forum session and meet those who are involved in the Rural and Urban Training Scheme out in Newtongrange. RUTS is a great example of an organisation that uses a youth-work approach—in this case, motorcycle maintenance—to equip young people with the confidence and skills required to achieve their potential and raise their aspirations. When I spoke to some of the young people on the programme, it was clear what a positive difference RUTS had made to their lives. Interestingly, the evidence shows that RUTS can also make a difference in the wider communities in which it operates.
Another programme that is making a significant difference is the £1 billion youth contract initiative that was announced by the UK Government last year. Under that programme, UK ministers have given a commitment to fund incentives for companies to take on young people as well as to provide extra support, through Jobcentre Plus, for unemployed 18 to 24-year-olds and an offer of work experience or a sector-based work academy place for every 18 to 24-year-old who wants one. I recognise that there is an overlap with some of the commitments that the Scottish Government has made. However, as well as delivering significant consequentials to Scotland, the youth contract can and must be used to expand the capacity and range of options that are on offer to young people in this country.
Before closing, I will touch briefly on two other areas that have a bearing on the issue. NUS Scotland rightly highlights concerns about the ability of our colleges to meet the demands that are placed on them by ministers. Despite a reduction in the cuts to their budgets, colleges will be under enormous pressure over the next few years, yet they are key players in providing our young people—indeed, people of all ages—with the skills that they need to get up and get on in these challenging economic times. In particular, a continued and relentless focus on widening access, in both our colleges and our universities, is essential. A failure to have such a focus will see Scotland’s relatively unimpressive track record deteriorate further, and the consequences of that would be serious.
In relation to careers advice, I make a plea with regard to the Government’s my world of work initiative. Ministers insist that they are not seeking to replace front-line careers advisers with web-based services. I welcome that assurance but feel that it sits uncomfortably with planned changes to staffing arrangements in the northern isles. Removing key posts from the service in my constituency sends absolutely the wrong message to staff and, importantly, those whom they are there to support.
As ever, there are many issues that I have not covered, but I welcome the opportunity that Parliament has had to debate—I congratulate Iain Gray and Mark McDonald, in particular, on two excellent speeches—the crucial role that our young people have in building sustainable economic growth in Scotland.
16:24
I welcome the debate and thank the Minister for Youth Employment for bringing it to the chamber. The debate ties in with much of what the Finance Committee is doing in looking at employability, which Mark McDonald touched on.
Youth unemployment and economic inactivity continue to be a major problem that the Parliament must do all that it can to address. Margaret McCulloch made a thoughtful and positive speech. In particular, her comments on aggregate demand were well put. We can talk about apprenticeships and other measures as much as we like but, as Stephen Boyd of the STUC told the Finance Committee, we need demand in the economy if we are to turn Scotland’s economy around and provide jobs not just for young people but for everyone who is without work.
However, Mr Gray’s view seems to be that if only he had been elected First Minister, everything in the garden would be rosy. In the ultimate political tautology, numbers seem to count only when it suits Labour. He castigated the SNP for apparently falling numbers of apprentices in the first couple of years that it was in government but, apparently, when Labour was in power, it was okay to have a 21 per cent reduction in the number of apprentices. I do not see how he can square that circle.
In its submission to the Finance Committee, the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts pointed out that Scotland has consistently had one of the highest proportions of young people not in education, employment or training in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, throughout the period going all the way back to 1996.
The reality is all the more disconcerting given that much of that period, leading up to the economic crash in 2008, is considered to have been a time of relative economic prosperity for the UK as a whole, albeit much of it fuelled by debt. Clearly, Scotland’s young people did not reap the benefits of that so-called prosperity or union dividend. In fact, in my North Ayrshire constituency of Cunninghame North, youth unemployment increased during that period, which was presided over by Labour Governments in London and Edinburgh, as well as by a Labour administration at North Ayrshire Council.
Thus I welcome the policy and direction that the SNP Government has ushered in since coming to power. Recently, we have created the opportunities for all programme, guaranteeing that all 16 to 19-year-olds not already in learning or employment will be offered a suitable training or education placement to combat the long-standing problem of a large proportion of that age group being inactive. Despite stringent budget constraints, we have found additional funding to assist local authorities in areas where youth unemployment is particularly rampant, including £828,000 for North Ayrshire.
Work readiness was mentioned in the press recently, and my colleague Mark McDonald referred to the evidence from Arnold Clark’s GTG Training. However, if we look at the figures at all levels—school leavers, those who have completed time at college and those who have graduated from university—the proportion of people who are work ready in Scotland exceeds the proportion in Wales, Northern Ireland and England. Our young people deserve credit for that.
Unfortunately, the Labour Party has spent much of the past week attacking the SNP Government’s highly successful modern apprenticeship scheme. Apparently, Labour has only just found out that all apprentices in Scotland are employed before they begin an apprenticeship programme, which was also the case when the Labour Party was in power at Holyrood. It has already been pointed out that the scheme is run in the same way as it was when Labour was in office.
Politically chameleon-like—when I mentioned that to Mike Russell he said “comedian-like”, although I do not find it amusing—Kezia Dugdale tried to say that the situation is different now in Scotland so we need a different way to address the situation. It is almost like criticising one’s own political party.
Will the member take an intervention?
I would have done if the member had taken one from me. She took interventions before and after mine. In this Parliament, we make and concede to interventions in the same way.
Will the member take an intervention?
I am happy to take one from Mr Gray, who took one from me.
Surely the point is that, if the Government’s argument is that its apprenticeship programme strategy is right for 2006, it cannot possibly be right for 2012. It is no surprise that it is not working. [Applause.]
Thunderous applause from Kezia Dugdale alone on the Labour benches there.
I dispute the suggestion that it is not working. It is not just that there are more people in apprenticeships; we have doubled the number of people in training. When we talk about whether it is working, we have to take into account the overall economic situation, to which the member’s colleague Margaret McCulloch appropriately referred. We are in a difficult economic situation, and I find it astonishing that Labour members have not taken that on board.
The truth is that Labour’s are shameful attacks. I quote Labour’s own house journal, the Daily Record, which said on Monday:
“When the Labour Party created modern apprenticeships, it was a way of creating opportunities for young people. The SNP have made modern apprenticeships a way for politicians to lie to the public.”
We wonder why the First Minister responded in the way in which he did, with passion but not with anger, as Labour members appear to have indicated.
Labour members have also repeatedly called on the Scottish Government to increase funding for colleges but, by 2014-15, the Government will have invested £4.7 billion in colleges since 2007—40 per cent more than the previous Labour-Lib Dem Administration invested during its two terms in office.
Mr McArthur might want to look at what the Tory-Lib Dem coalition is doing south of the border. Indeed, Ms Dugdale’s former employer, NUS Scotland, has welcomed the Government’s commitment to maintaining college places and student support budgets at their current level.
I support the motion.
16:30
Like many members who have spoken today, I am going to focus on the reality of apprenticeships for a number of people, particularly in the area that I represent. We all agree that the employed status of apprenticeships in Scotland, which the rest of the UK is now moving towards, is something that we can be proud of. It means that the decisions that we have taken on apprenticeships have always been relevant to the needs of employers and have always been closely tied to employment—that is the most important issue in today’s debate, and we should not lose sight of it.
Chic Brodie is not here, but I want to respond to a couple of the points that he made. I sit next to Chic Brodie in the Economy, Energy and Tourism Committee, so I actually quite like him, but he cast some doubt over my experience in this area. However, as someone who, as I might have mentioned before, is a former apprentice, who was head of employee relations at Babcock and ran its apprenticeship scheme, who, as a trade union official, worked with a number of companies on apprenticeship programmes, who has taken an interest in apprenticeships since being elected in 2007, and who has worked with a range of sector skills councils and other bodies on the issue, I think that I am a wee bit qualified to have a view on the issue and to say something about it.
Also in response to Chic Brodie, I say that, yes, the balance has tipped. In the past, people who had been in work for a while would have got the opportunity of taking up certain apprenticeships. However, the headlines about companies such as Arnold Clark, CR Smith and Scottish Gas suggest that there are thousands of apprentices who are not in work who are applying for jobs, and the people who get those jobs are people who are not in work. The perception that a lot of people have is that apprenticeship opportunities go to people who are not in work through the normal selection and recruitment process that there would be for any job. We have to get that point clearly on the record today.
That is at the heart of the problem that the Scottish Government has on this issue. It has created a certain perception with its provision of 25,000 apprenticeships. No one mentioned that someone might have been in employment for six months or longer before they took up the apprenticeship. The perception that has been created is that the 25,000 apprenticeships are there for people who want them, and that the apprenticeships last for three or four years and are in traditional trade jobs such as plumbers, joiners and electricians. I know that apprenticeships go right across the board and that there are 130 different types of apprenticeships. I support that kind of vocational training and believe that it is right that we have the ethos of apprenticeships right across our workplaces in Scotland. However, the reality is that, of the 26,000 apprenticeships in 2010-11, only 3,789 were what we would describe as traditional apprenticeships. The gap between the reality and the public’s perception is a huge issue. As politicians, we have a duty to address that.
I do not know about other MSPs, but people regularly come to speak to me about their sons, daughters, grandsons and granddaughters not getting the opportunity to take up an apprenticeship and get started in a career. We have to recognise that problem. We should support in-work training and recognise those opportunities for what they are, but we should also recognise that there is a desire for traditional apprenticeships and that we need to think about how we support them, not only in terms of Government support but in terms of the local economies.
I appreciate Mr Park’s advocacy and support for what are perceived to be traditional apprenticeships. I, too, am pleased that the number of construction apprenticeships has held up, in spite of the recession, and that the number of engineering modern apprenticeships has increased.
However, would John Park accept that our provision and alignment of the modern apprenticeship programme must tie in with the Government’s economic strategy and that we must also respond to the needs of employers and provide modern apprenticeship opportunities in other growth sectors such as food and drink, the creative industries, tourism, energy and oil and gas?
I accept that and, if the minister goes back through the record over a number of years, she will see that I have said that for the past four or five years. What I do not accept—Kezia Dugdale made the same point—is the focus that there currently seems to be, particularly in the third and fourth quarters, on achieving a certain number of apprenticeships. On a Friday, someone is a person sitting in their seat doing a normal job but, on Monday, all of a sudden they are an apprentice. We should not take that approach to ensure that we hit the targets, because it does not fit in with the Government’s economic strategy and it will not help younger people in the longer term.
I will make some constructive suggestions. We must get some detail on the modern apprenticeship figures. Given that £72 million is being spent on the scheme, it is right that the Scottish Government should say annually what the figures are. How do we increase the opportunities for level 3 apprenticeships? Is the number of level 2 apprenticeships appropriate? Is it right that we focus on people who are already in work, or should we focus on people who are outside the labour market? Let us have an honest discussion about the figures. There is a lot that we can agree on and I hope that we can move forward together as a Parliament and start delivering for the young people of Scotland.
16:36
The debate is a very important one. We should recognise that we are all concerned about any young person who is unemployed and is not getting the opportunities that we would want them to have.
I am sure that at this time of year other members will have been invited, as I have been, to a number of school award ceremonies. I was at one last Tuesday at Abronhill high school, at which I saw an array of fine, talented young people receiving awards for real achievement. The idea that those young people might not be afforded the opportunities that we all want to see them get and the opportunities that I have had terrifies me. If there is any suggestion that concern about the issue is not shared across the board, I hope that it is not taken seriously. I think that it is viewed as a serious issue across the chamber. Iain Gray was right to say that the issue should unite us rather than divide us.
We are all aware that we are in difficult economic times. We should also be aware that the youngest are among those who are the most vulnerable to the effects of the economic downturn. We see how grave the situation is for young people in some other countries. For example, youth unemployment is running at over 50 per cent in Greece and Spain. There are obviously problems here, but we do not have as severe a problem as there is in those other countries.
Of course, that is not to take a complacent attitude. I am glad to see that the Scottish Government is doing what it can with the powers and resources that it has at its disposal to try to ensure that it provides opportunities for young people. The creation for the first time of a dedicated post of Minister for Youth Employment was a signal in that direction, and I think that the creation of that post was welcomed across the board.
I will talk a little about what the Scottish Government is trying to do. Mark McDonald made the very good point that the debate should be about more than modern apprenticeships, but a lot has been said about them in the past few days and I want to pick up on what has been said.
Let us focus on the facts. Last year, the Scottish Government invested £72 million to support more than 26,000 modern apprenticeship starts—a figure that exceeded the target of 25,000. John Park made a very good speech, as he usually does, but he repeated the criticism, which Kezia Dugdale made more explicitly, of the modern apprenticeship scheme being target driven. Call me cynical, but if this Scottish Government was not to meet the target, I wonder who might be the first person to criticise it for not having met the target. Perhaps that is too cynical a perspective to put forward in this debate.
The point has been made, rightly, that the modern apprenticeship scheme runs as it always has done, but there is one important key difference. The difference is that, under this Government, nearly double the amount is being invested in the modern apprenticeship scheme than was the case under the Labour-Liberal Executive. That should surely be welcomed.
I understand the point that Iain Gray was trying to make, but I was concerned to hear him suggest that we should not just be counting the number of apprenticeships. He went on to say that we should ensure that the apprenticeships are meaningful. He must be careful about the language that he employs. I think that every young person who is engaged in a modern apprenticeship is doing something meaningful.
Iain Gray rose—
I am sure that Iain Gray will want to put on the record that he thinks so, too.
I am grateful to Mr Hepburn for giving me the chance to correct a mistake that he and one of his colleagues have made. I did not say that there are apprenticeships in the modern apprenticeship programme that are not meaningful; rather, I said that we have to make the programme count, by which I meant that we have to make it deal more effectively with the unemployment crisis and more effectively match the economy’s needs. That is not the same as saying that the apprenticeships are not meaningful. It is very different.
I am glad that Mr Gray has had the opportunity to clarify his remarks and that he accepts, as we all do, that modern apprenticeships are meaningful.
That is probably enough about modern apprenticeships. Mark McDonald and I have made the point that there are other things happening as well.
I want to pick up on the £9 million that the Scottish Government has invested in six local authority areas that face particular challenges with youth unemployment, some of which are historic challenges. I was very glad that North Lanarkshire was the second largest beneficiary of that investment, and was very happy to join the minister at an event at Cumbernauld airport to announce the £9 million investment. The minister and I were able to speak to young people who were actively engaged in the programme that North Lanarkshire Council was taking forward. They are being supported in their employment by the local authority, and it was clear that they were benefiting from that investment and the investment that has been built on by the Scottish Government. It was also useful to speak to the manager of the airport, who frankly stated that he was a bit cynical about the idea at first but went on to recognise the benefit of investing in young people. That should be the basis on which we all proceed. We should all recognise the benefit of investing in young people at all times, but particularly in these difficult economic times.
16:42
When Michael Moore, Iain Duncan Smith, John Swinney and Angela Constance went to Dundee in March to discuss ways to tackle unacceptably high levels of youth unemployment, I was encouraged that they might focus on Dundee. Kezia Dugdale and I sat in Dundee College that morning and listened to the minister talking about youth unemployment. She also took questions from young unemployed people and local businesses in Dundee. At that point, I believed that we could try together to tackle rising youth unemployment in our city. However, I was disappointed. Three days after the SNP ministerial car had swept out of Dundee, it was announced that £9 million would be shared across Scotland to tackle youth unemployment, but not one penny would come to Dundee, which was the venue for the Scottish youth unemployment conference.
Is Ms Marra aware of the methodology? This is the first time she has raised the issue with me. One stream of funding was targeted at six local authorities that have the most acute problems. That is not to say for one moment that Dundee, Fife, West Lothian and West Dunbartonshire do not have problems, but money was targeted to other areas on that occasion. As we proceed to the medium term with our strategy, Jenny Marra should welcome the fact that we have European social fund money with which we can move forward and ensure that other areas of Scotland will also benefit.
I will go back and look at the minister’s methodology, because my understanding is that Dundee’s youth unemployment rates are worse than those of three of the five areas at which she targeted that investment. I am sure that she and I can correspond on that matter in the future.
The SNP came to Dundee with warm words and assurances, but did not regard the city’s youth unemployment problem as being big enough to deserve investment. Furthermore, when asked why Dundee’s young people had been overlooked, a Scottish Government spokesperson replied that money had been earmarked for areas that have particular youth unemployment problems.
Let me tell the minister about the extent of youth unemployment in Dundee, so that next time she will not do us the disservice of sharing a platform with the Tories in Dundee and telling us how concerned she is, but will instead address the problem with hard investment. In Dundee today, 1,705 16 to 24-year-olds are claiming unemployment benefit while Dundee has 674 modern apprenticeships, so it is clear that that number should be multiplied by three. The Scottish Government’s statistics show that during the past year the number of 16 to 24-year-olds in Dundee who have been claiming unemployment benefit for six months or more rose by a staggering 109 per cent, and the number who have been claiming for a year or more soared by 642 per cent. I would like to think that the Scottish Government simply did not know the true extent of the problem in Dundee before its spokesperson told our young people that they are not a priority for the Government.
For too long, the Government has used its flagship policy on modern apprenticeships as an excuse for ignoring the problem. The Government has claimed countless times that 25,000 modern apprenticeships have been created. We now know, as a result of Kezia Dugdale’s assiduous research, that the claim is spurious and that the reality is that the Government cannot even administer a modern apprenticeships scheme effectively, let alone transform apprenticeships into sustainable jobs for unemployed youngsters.
When I think of Dundee, I think of our potential. I think of our life sciences and technology sectors and our future as a renewables hub. I think of our proud manufacturing history—NCR, Timex and Kestrel—I think of all the young people I meet who tell me that they desperately want to work, and I think of the young men and women who want to work in construction and engineering, who want to work with their hands and make things.
Some people stopped me in the street in Dundee last week to ask me when the renewables jobs will come. So far, the Government has failed to deliver on those jobs, despite our city’s promise. The investment from Gamesa did not come to Dundee, and although it is almost six months to the day since the First Minister came to Dundee to sign a memorandum of understanding with Scottish and Southern Energy, we still wait to hear the outcome. We still do not know how much our portion will be of the national renewables infrastructure fund or when it will come to Dundee. Perhaps the Government will tell us today—or soon.
We owe it to Dundee’s youngsters to give them every opportunity to meet the expectations that we teach them their hard work will allow them to achieve. On behalf of our young people, I urge the Government to make youth employment an even higher priority.
16:48
I declare an interest, because I intend to speak about the auto industry. I come from an auto business background.
When I contemplated employing a young person, my prerequisite for a candidate was that they should be willing to learn. I never sought people who had already been trained, but much preferred to provide training that would benefit the individual and produce the skill set that was required for the job. No doubt other employers have a preference for ready-trained people, but in my experience the other approach is far better. However, training is vital if we want the best from the workforce.
That view is supported by a recent survey of employers by the UK Commission for Employment and Skills. The commission found that employers in Scotland are more likely to invest in building the skills of their staff than are employers anywhere else in the UK.
My business, which my son now runs, is involved in supplying the motor repair industry. In general, the motor trade has a fine record in recruiting and training young people, whether we are talking about mechanical engineers, coach painters, panel beaters or a host of technical professions which, I am sure, many members do not know about. However, because of the massive financial pressure on the sector that the credit crunch has caused, the auto industry as a whole, and the auto repair industry in particular, have had to guard and spend every penny wisely.
I note that the modern apprenticeships scheme has been of significant assistance to the sector. I find it difficult to understand Labour’s rhetoric on modern apprenticeships. First, it wrecks the economy and then it cuts the Scottish budget while continually demanding that the Scottish Government spend even more money than it did when it was in administration.
Whether it is for health, local government or education, Labour politicians demand more. Labour negotiated with the Scottish Government the number of modern apprenticeships that it believed were required. The Government provided funding for even more, but Labour still voted against modern apprenticeships. What is even worse is that despite voting against that increased number the Labour Party is still demanding more—not so much like Oliver Twist, more like Stan and Oliver.
Does Gil Paterson accept that when it comes to youth employment, the cost of not acting is far greater?
Of course the cost of not acting is greater, but Kezia Dugdale can see what this Government is actually doing: it is acting to the best of its ability.
The modern apprenticeships scheme is welcome. It is welcomed by young people in particular—mostly because they know that it is not a kiddie-on scheme, but one that comes with a job attached, offering them some security for the future. I well remember the dreaded yoppers scheme, in which young people who were looking for jobs or careers were simply used and abused in a scheme that led to nowhere and offered no security.
This Government has a different priority for young people across our country and for our industry. However, it is constrained in terms of what it would like to do and what it can do. If only it had the levers of power over the economy, the difference that could be made would be far greater. That said, the evidence speaks for itself and the Government’s commitment to young people can be measured in spades.
Last year, the Scottish Government invested about £72 million to support more than 26,400 modern apprenticeships—which exceeded the target of 25,000. Based on those figures, the Scottish Government is on track to deliver the 125,000 modern apprenticeships that it promised to the people of Scotland over this parliamentary session.
Compared to other countries in Europe, where youth unemployment is rising and their Governments are struggling to tackle the problem, Scotland is faring comparatively well. It would be naive to say that we have solved the problem, but I am proud that this Government is committed to tackling it and to ensuring that young Scots are able to advance themselves, be it through further education or through the workplace.
I fully endorse the Government’s position and I urge everyone to support the motion.
16:53
The contributions to this debate, which have been fiery at times, put into sharp perspective the extent of the challenge that we all face in tackling the great scourge that is any society that is scarred by the unemployment of far too many young people.
The speeches have also put into sharp perspective the difficulties of balancing greater numbers of jobs for young people with a qualitative approach that ensures that those jobs are more than just a statistic in the Scottish Government's official economic data. They should instead be a meaningful employment opportunity. As Iain Gray pointed out in his good speech, the definition of that is vitally important. The employment opportunity must also be fulfilling and be for the longer term, as came through strongly in the discussions at the Finance Committee meeting yesterday.
No one is pretending that the job is easy, particularly when it is set against trends in the global economy. It demands detailed scrutiny of exactly where the problem lies, and a well-evidenced analysis of where the policy and spending focus should be. Yesterday and today, my colleagues Gavin Brown and Mary Scanlon have been asking the Scottish Government some very important questions on that front. They have asked it to be clear about the exact causes of unemployment among our young people, and about the quantitative and qualitative measurements by which it intends to judge whether their policy focus is a success. That point was made very well by John Park and Liam McArthur.
The minister has rightly said that local business forums can be very helpful in the micromanagement that is required in employment policy. She was right to say that that also includes schools, colleges and universities. That will succeed only if there is a transparent approach and an accepted rationale for where spending is greater and likely to have its best effect.
My colleagues and other members are keen to tease out of the minister a little more about the criteria that she is using to award six local authorities additional resources. That comes back to Jenny Marra’s point. Nobody is disputing the reason for doing that, but they want to know the criteria by which the awards are being made possible, and how we will assess the success of the additional resources.
The point that was made by several Labour members is crucial: training programmes have to be tailored to suit the skills of young people, rather than the young people being developed to suit the training programmes. I do not accept the high percentages that are sometimes bandied about in some quarters, which say that the vast majority of our young people are unemployable.
I do accept—not least because it is the very consistent and powerful contention from virtually every part of the highly respected business community in Scotland—that far too many young people do not have the right skills and, sadly, are not sufficiently well schooled in the basics of literacy and numeracy, or sufficiently aware of the professional approach that is required in the work place. Yesterday, we saw another report on our schools which—yet again—highlighted the need for more action in that area, particularly in our deprived communities.
Once again, I stress the importance that the Scottish Conservatives attach to dealing with the issue at the youngest possible age. It is all very well for Governments to be talking about colleges and universities widening access—which is entirely right—and setting a certain number of places aside for students from disadvantaged communities, but—to be quite frank—that is not where the focus should be. That point is too late in the day for many young people, which is why we need to tackle that issue earlier, particularly in primary school.
Provided that employers buy into its philosophy and new exam structure, the curriculum for excellence should be a real opportunity to make the school experience much more meaningful to each individual, and to combine that with much greater rigour when it comes to the basic skills. That, combined with taking on board what Donaldson, Roe and Christie all said to us, should allow us to make much better progress when it comes to their developing the right skills.
It is by those means that we can hope to change attitudes to technical and vocational training, and to remove the still-persistent view that a non-university education is somehow second class. In his excellent speech in this chamber last week, Sir Tom Hunter had some extremely important things to say to us, as some members have mentioned. We need more imagination and creativity about how we can instil the entrepreneurial spirit in more of our young people. There are many other entrepreneurs who want to see the Scottish Government make much greater efforts to encourage private sector capital into the process. That needs much greater attention if there is to be a fully coherent approach in the manner that the minister has said she wants. That can only happen if we remove the barriers that prevent some employers from taking on new apprentices.
We can argue a lot about the numbers and about what constitutes an apprenticeship and what does not. I am sure that that has some importance, but so does the qualitative aspect of what we are doing and that, in turn, demands a much more robust, transparent and evidence-based policy.
I support the amendment in the name of Mary Scanlon.
16:59
If I may, I will—before I address some of the points that members have raised—cover a couple of points that I did not manage to get into my opening speech. The first is on redundant apprentices. Back in 2009, the Scottish Government set up a scheme called safeguard an apprentice, which was designed to support businesses that were struggling to survive by giving them £75 a week to help them to keep on an apprentice. The Government quietly scrapped that scheme at Christmas time.
The scheme actually ceased last September, so it is sad that Miss Dugdale has taken so long to catch up. In 2009-10, the scheme benefited 291 young people and, in 2011-12, the figure fell to 15. It was costing more to run the scheme than it was actually helping people. Will she retract her silly, wilful and deliberate misunderstanding of the situation and get to the facts?
I apologise for getting the dates of December and September mixed up, but I will not apologise for setting out the fundamental facts at the heart of the issue. The minister says that the scheme was scrapped because of a lack of demand. Is she seriously telling us that, in the current economic circumstances, businesses do not need help to keep on their apprentices?
A second scheme called adopt an apprentice is designed to place apprentices who are made redundant with different firms so that they can continue their qualifications. That is popular with small businesses such as Wishart Contracts in my area of Edinburgh, because they get a skilled apprentice without much of the associated cost. The SPICe briefing on youth employment that was given to the Finance Committee this week says that the future of the adopt an apprentice scheme is unclear. At that committee this week, the minister confirmed that she plans to continue to fund the scheme, but she did not say to what degree or by how much.
For clarification, I told the Finance Committee that, in March, I made an announcement at a very public Holyrood conference in the city that we were once again extending the scheme. Please master the brief.
Again, the minister fails to answer the question, which is this: how much money is she going to spend on the scheme next year? I can tell her how much she spent in the past two years, so I am surprised that she cannot tell us how much she wants to spend in the future. I ask her for that detail. The questions on the support that she is providing for redundant apprentices bring us back to the heart of the matter, which is that her Government is more interested in delivering the 25,000 modern apprenticeships as a number, rather than as a policy.
Neil Findlay, in an intervention, made an important point about the way in which Skills Development Scotland records the figures on where apprentices are after they complete their qualifications. That agency records nothing about where people are three, six or 12 months after they have completed their course, or about whether they are still employed. That is a worry. Probably, a significant number of those people end up back in the dole queue, even though they have their apprenticeship certificates. The minister has suggested that that might be scaremongering or that it is untrue, but if she looked at the local authority websites advertising apprenticeship schemes, she would see that, time and again, whenever a local authority advertises an apprenticeship, it is for a fixed term, which is the length of time that it takes somebody to complete the apprenticeship. It is no wonder that people are worried about whether the jobs exist at the end of the programme.
There are other issues that I wanted to cover in my opening speech. My colleague Jenny Marra asked legitimate questions about the methodology behind the £9 million that has been given to six local authorities. I would like to ask why not a single job has been advertised on the community jobs Scotland website since March this year. In answer to one of my parliamentary questions, the minister said that the scheme will return in August of this year—
Will the member give way to let me answer that question?
I am sorry, but I want to continue.
If the scheme is so successful, why did the minister let it stop for five months when 100,000 young people are out of work? In 2011-12, the Government funded the scheme to the tune of £10 million to create 2,000 opportunities. The Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations asked for that to be extended and offered to deliver 6,000 opportunities over three years for £21 million, but it got £6 million to deliver 1,000 opportunities. What is the cost to society if those people remain unemployed when there is a perfectly good scheme that she continues to remind us of, but which is not getting the money that it needs to deliver?
I remain concerned about activity agreements and whether they should be considered as positive destinations in the eyes of young people.
Mark McDonald made an excellent speech that touched on the transitions between different employment programmes. I, too, am worried about the number of young people who are simply recycled around the system, but the problem is that we cannot see that particular story in the employment statistics. I also share Liam McArthur’s concerns that many SDS offices are closing or reducing their hours and that young people are increasingly being referred to online sources. That, in my experience, is not how young people want to access careers advice; they want to be able to turn up and ask questions. The system should not be simply appointments-based.
Iain Gray made an important point when he said that we should spend less time counting apprenticeships and more time making them count. He also killed the myth that because we voted against the budget we voted against modern apprenticeships. [Interruption.]
Order!
That reminded me of Mark McDonald’s speech in the UK budget debate, in which he argued that one might vote against a budget but that does not mean that one is against everything in it. I say to Mr McDonald that he should join us now that he has seen the light. We have a seat for him here. [Interruption.]
Order! We will hear the member.
Kevin Stewart simply got his facts wrong when he said that £35 million was spent in 2006. I have in my hand the Scottish Government press release—I will give it to him afterwards—and on the back, it refers to £60 million in 2006. If his minister is going to accuse me of not doing my homework, I ask Mr Stewart to do his before he comes back to the chamber to talk about this issue.
The member needs to wind up.
Absolutely, Presiding Officer.
When the minister started her job, 100,000 young Scots were out of work; now that she has been in it for six months, 100,000 are still without work. We want to work with the Government on this issue, but it has to be straight with us and with a public that is desperate for opportunities for our young people.
17:06
Over the past few days, there has been much excitement in Scotland as the Olympic torch has travelled through our country. A modern apprentice on a business management course called John brought the torch into Hopetoun and, after the week that we have had, my thought was how symbolic that was.
The Olympic torch symbolises world peace and understanding, but it is fair to say that we have not had much peace and understanding in the chamber today. Nevertheless, there have been some substantial, heartfelt and considered contributions and, in that respect, I want to pick out a few people.
Mark McDonald always speaks from his heart and I assure him that I, this Government and the rest of the chamber share his commitment to improving the life chances of Scotland’s looked-after children. As a former mental health officer, I am glad that Mary Scanlon mentioned the link between unemployment and mental health, and I give her an undertaking that if I do not respond to certain points in my speech I will endeavour to do so in writing.
Iain Gray had some golden nuggets in his speech. I am a reasonable person—or at least, as reasonable as a politician gets. I assure him that a consultation on the public procurement bill is imminent. I also assure the chamber that the needs of young unemployed Scots will be up front and central in that bill.
I simply have to ask the minister what many people are asking: when is that consultation going to happen?
I appreciate that Mr Gray really wants to have an answer to that question. However, as a former minister himself, he will know that, first, certain things have to take place in the Government. However, the consultation will happen soon. He will have something to get his teeth into and we look forward to getting constructive feedback on maximising procurement opportunities.
Iain Gray and others also touched on the role of local government. In this all-government, all-Scotland approach to tackling rising youth unemployment, single outcome agreements and my on-going dialogue with local authorities are pivotal. Indeed, part of the reason for having local action forums on youth unemployment was to find local solutions rooted in local economies. The chamber may also be interested to know that Skills Development Scotland is devising youth employment plans with every local authority in Scotland.
I will not accept the amendments of the Labour and Tory parties for reasons that I hope become apparent.
The draft youth employment strategy was warmly welcomed, but I took on board the views that the Parliament expressed when we debated it a few months ago. I wanted to address, in a meaningful and considered way, some of the equality issues to do with women, young disabled people and young people from the black and minority ethnic community. We accepted that there was a need to sharpen our focus on diversity issues. I do not do such things in a tokenistic manner. I want those matters to be addressed in a meaningful and rich way.
I would like to encapsulate what the short, medium and long-term response of this Government is to youth unemployment. Surely the chamber must accept that we needed to act quickly. When I came into my post, we had to make a series of decisions, between December and March, about money that was available for year 1. Surely that was a commonsense approach. I assure members that although we do not need to waste time and effort in reinventing the wheel, we must ensure that every pound spent by the public purse adds value. I can give members that assurance. We needed to act quickly. Are people seriously suggesting that I should wait until we have a finalised youth employment strategy, with every dot and comma checked, before I can allocate much-needed resources to some of our communities in Scotland?
Members who criticise the decisions that have been made should say which decision should not have been made. Are they talking about the decision to give £1.5 million to the employment recruitment incentive to support young care leavers into work? Are they talking about the provision of £6 million for community jobs Scotland? I have heard many Labour members talk about the life-changing impact of community jobs Scotland on the young people on that programme, which is currently still in its first phase. We will, of course, be advertising soon, in a timely manner and in accordance with the requests of the Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations, which has put forward a programme for its second phase. Are members criticising the allocation of £2.5 million to the social enterprise challenge fund, the provision of £5 million for the Commonwealth games legacy or the money that was given recently to the Prince’s Trust?
Mention has been made of pocket money. I came into this post with a budget of £30 million. With the identification of £25 million of European structural funds, that has nearly doubled. Crucially, that £25 million has to be match-funded by another £35 million. That rolls up to a budget of £90 million over the next few years. I do not describe that as pocket money.
As far as the medium term is concerned, we need to do more, specifically on long-term unemployment, as Jenny Marra and others said. We have a good offering for 16 to 19-year-olds. There is no doubt that the claimant count among 18 to 24-year-olds is rising. Although we do not want to duplicate services that are provided by the Department for Work and Pensions, we must add to what is currently available to young people who are risk of long-term unemployment or who are in that position.
Kezia Dugdale rose—
I am in my final minute; the Presiding Officer is eyeing me up.
A lot has been said about the modern apprenticeship scheme. I make this point in all seriousness: this is Scotland’s Parliament, and our words have consequences. If members talk down the modern apprenticeship scheme, which is highly successful, they talk down Scotland’s young people. I will not stand by and let anyone talk down our young, talented and energetic Scots, who have their whole lives in front of them and for whom we must provide hope and opportunity.
Let us work together. My door is always open to people who have constructive ideas and suggestions—we began to hear a few of those today, for the first time, after a week of nonsense—but let us not talk down young Scots, because our young people are the future of this country and they will help us to grow our economy and to grow as a nation.