MP warns cutting jobs fund will lead to 'lost generation'

EAST Lothian Labour MP Fiona O'Donnell has warned the UK Government's decision to scrap the Future Jobs Fund could lead to "another lost generation of Scots".

And she called on ministers to spell out their alternative.

The 1.2 billion fund launched by Labour awarded grants to charities and voluntary organisations to set up employment schemes for young people.

Instead, the UK Government plans to merge all existing welfare-to-work initiatives into a single Work Programme, intended to help all unemployed people get a job. But no details of how it will work have yet been published.

Ms O'Donnell rejected the government's criticism that the Future Jobs Fund provided only temporary jobs and there was no incentive to create permanent posts.

She said: "Ideally you would place them in permanent jobs, but the jobs are not out there, the Scottish economy is shrinking.

"It is about not allowing them to slip into a culture of not being in work."