The pandemic generation of young people was “failed” by the last government, the employment minister has said.
Alison McGovern, a minister at the Department for Work and Pensions, claimed the Conservative Party shirked its “responsibility” to help young people during the Covid-19 pandemic.
The comments came after the government unveiled plans to replace the network of Jobcentres with a new National Jobs and Careers Service. As part of the initiative, young people will be offered additional employment and training opportunities, including with the Premier League, the Royal Shakespeare Company and Channel 4, while extra powers will be handed to mayors to develop their own employment plans.
Announcing the plans, prime minister Keir Starmer declared Britain “simply isn’t working” as he vowed to bring more people into work and slash the country’s spiralling benefits bill.
Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, McGovern declined to say by how much the government will reduce the welfare bill.
Asked what would happen if people did not take up offers of employment or other help, she said: “When good help is offered, it is taken up, that is normally what happens. Of course, people will always think of that small minority… people who are not interested, they don’t want to do it.”
She added: “There are rules in the system. Those rules have got to be made to work to make sure that if you take out in the form of social security, you have to do your part of the bargain.”
Pushed further on what would happen if young people did not take up offers, McGovern said: “My worry about this conversation is that we know that young people have a responsibility to take up support.
“The government under the Tories completely failed in its responsibility to actually help young people, the pandemic generation were failed.”
McGovern also said it must be ensured that job centres “actually serve employers”.
“Only one in six of our employers really thinks about using a job centre”, she said. “That is not OK because it means that the public employment service that’s supposed to be there to support our businesses is failing”.
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