Early intervention needed to tackle youth unemployment
David Ward MP has called for more resources to be targeted toward early intervention among the most disadvantaged young people in order to tackle record levels of youth unemployment.
Speaking in a debate in Parliament, David said that too many young people in Bradford are leaving school without the appropriate skills or qualifications to find work. He argued that more resources to be targeted toward helping these young people at an earlier stage would save far greater sums in benefits and welfare to work schemes further down the line.
Commenting, David Ward said:
"I welcome the work that the Government is doing to tackle youth unemployment, such as reforming welfare to work schemes and providing more work experience placements and apprenticeships. They need to go a lot further in these areas, and I will be pressing them to do that.
"However this doesn't tackle the real problem that many post-16 interventions are remedial work to tackle problems which should have been picked up in schools. Too many people are leaving school without the skills they need to find a job.
"More joined up provision is needed before 16, bringing together schools, families and youth services to help young people who are disengaged from a very early age. We also need additional mainstream funding to help this particularly challenging group.
"If we do not get to grips with this problem we risk losing hundreds of young people for good. This is an issue that I will be raising with the Secretary of State at the earliest possible opportunity."