Labour 'ready to work with coalition' in bid to create jobs for youth

Published on Sunday 2 January 2011 16:46

LABOUR will ask UK ministers for millions of pounds of the UK welfare budget to be handed over to the Scottish Government as part of radical plans to create thousands of taxpayer-funded jobs for young Scots on the dole.

Party chiefs have told The Scotsman that, if elected in May, it will seek to "work together" with the Tory-Liberal Democrat government at Westminster on attacking welfare dependency, particularly among people in their twenties.

The most recent figures show that 8.7 per cent of people in Scotland are unemployed, well above the UK average of 7.9 per cent, with 45,000 more Scots without a job compared with this time last year.

Among youngsters, the num-ber of 18- 24-year-old "Neets" - not in employment, education or training - has gone up from 31,000 to 36,000 in the past year, the biggest increase in a decade.

Under their new plan, Labour will restart the Futures Jobs Fund which it set up across the UK while in government, but which was cancelled by the Tory-Lib Dem coalition.

Government funds would be used to pay the wages of as many as 10,000 jobs for younger Scots who have been out of work for more than six months.

The jobs will be created by private-sector and public-sector bodies with the aim that, once the funding from the taxpayer has run out, the employee will be kept on.

As the scheme will mean that the recruits will be taken off the dole, it will result in a saving for the UK government which pays out benefits. Consequently, finance spokesman Andy Kerr says he will ask UK ministers to hand over the savings of 50- a-week Jobseekers allowance, which will be used to help pay for the jobs themselves.

That would equate to a sum of 26 million being transferred from London to Edinburgh.

Labour said they hoped to secure agreement with London by offering a more co-operative approach to the coalition. Initial soundings with the Department for Work and Pensions have suggested that UK ministers are happy to discuss the plan.

Mr Kerr said: "This is not about having a fight (with the UK government]. It is about getting a result for a very big challenge we have in Scotland. I hope to have a positive engagement with the UK government on this."

He added: "We want to achieve our objective and work in partnership with them. My view of the SNP government is that they have set out to seek any point of disagreement to extend their advantage.

"The hallmark of relations between Holyrood and Westminster should be about achieving an end which is a benefit. I look forward to working with UK ministers and I am very sure I can justify our approach."

The former Future Jobs Fund found 15,400 jobs in Scotland, at a cost of 39m to the taxpayer, before being wound up.The new coalition government has claimed the fund represented a poor return, creating made-up jobs.

However, backers of the scheme say it ensures that young people are out learning new skills and getting used to a working life, rather than staying at home doing nothing.

Mr Kerr added: "If we don't take radical action, then we will repeat the errors of the 1980s, where the message gets out that work is not something people should aspire to. That is not acceptable."