Walk down any High Street these days and you’ll hear the same worry from shopkeepers, parents, and employers alike: too many of our young people are not getting the opportunities they deserve.
The number of teenagers and twenty-somethings classed as NEET – not in education, employment, or training – keeps creeping upward.
This isn’t just an economic issue. It’s a social one. Work gives young people structure, pride, and a sense of belonging. When they’re cut off from that, we all lose something, not only in taxes uncollected but in the gradual erosion of the values that keep a community strong.
When I recently visited Bedford College, I was shocked by some of the statistics they shared with me. Bedford Borough is above the NEET average for the East of England and for the whole of the country.
Apprenticeships are one answer to that, but bureaucracy is getting in the way. Businesses and colleges have to sit through pages and pages of paperwork every single month just for one apprentice.
We should be championing apprenticeships, local training schemes, and partnerships between schools and local businesses. Too often, we’ve pushed the idea that university is the only respectable route, leaving many to feel like failures before they’ve even begun.
Meanwhile, trades and practical careers – the backbone of any town – are crying out for fresh talent.
“Labour must think again”
Many local employers say the same: give them someone willing to learn, and they’ll give them a future. But instead of giving young people opportunities, this Government is making it more difficult.
It has increased National Insurance on businesses, making it more expensive to hire an employee. It has hiked rates on the hospitality sector, naturally one of the first places young people get a job, just like I did. And it has cut funding for vital Level 7 apprenticeships, which includes nursing.
Labour have delivered two job-destroying Budgets since winning power last year, and they’re set to force through an ‘Unemployment Bill’.
This will not help get Bedfordshire’s young people into work. They must think again before it’s too late.
This is a monthly guest column provided by
Blake Stephenson, Conservative MP for Mid Bedfordshire.
It is published unedited and does not
reflect the views of the Bedford Independent.
