As questions still linger around our new trade deal with India and the potential impact on British jobs, the Government is quietly still plugging away at negotiations with the EU, with a finalised agreement set to be unveiled later this month.
While the Prime Minister hopes to sell the deal as a broad defence and security pact, reports indicate that progress in talks has been unstuck by the UK acceding to European negotiators on one crucial demand: a proposed UK/EU Youth Mobility Scheme, whereby young people from the EU would be granted the right to live, work and study across the UK, and visa versa.
It’s not to say that an agreement on youth mobility is inherently a bad idea. Allowing young Britons a year to travel or work abroad has long been an established rite of passage for those who can afford it.
But in the context of nearly a million young people across the UK not in employment, education or training (NEET) – equating to one-in-seven people aged 16-24 – I would argue that they are the burning priority, when our politicians consider young people’s needs today.
A statistic that always stands out to me is that if you have never had any experience of work by the time you are 24, then your chances of working at all are cut in half.
As our Chancellor has said repeatedly, our crisis of worklessness is a national mission that must be remedied as swiftly as possible, ensuring we get young people into a quality job, apprenticeship, or education scheme.
But allowing free access to the UK’s labour market for young people across Europe doesn’t necessarily go hand in hand with this objective. And for this matter, neither does allowing temporary Indian workers NICs exceptions when working in the UK.
Easy access to people who require less support and encouragement than our NEETs could become a quick fix for our politicians, shelving the much more significant problem – namely young people being left unemployed and inactive – as a problem for another day.
Having spoken to businesses across the country, they feel a huge sense of pride in supporting their communities, and they want to contribute to building up the pool of local talent. Just look at the work local businesses are already doing across our ‘left behind’ communities. For example, David Neiper, a clothing manufacturing business in Derbyshire, took over a failing local school, teaching pupils employability skills and now having no NEETs aged over 18. Or Valero in Pembrokeshire, that takes on swathes of local apprentices every year, teaching vital skills in engineering and operations.
This is not to disparage the massive contribution that young Europeans make to the UK, both culturally and economically. But there is a moral argument in favour of getting our young Britons back to work that must be heard.
Of course, the cost to our economy of the unfulfilled potential of one million young people, both in terms of welfare payments and lost productivity, is huge. Even looking at taxation alone, reducing the number of NEETs by half would raise an additional £2.5 billion in tax revenue.
So, rather than focusing on allowing more young Europeans to come to the UK, we should be supporting UK businesses. They are already under enormous pressure with the recent National Insurance rises, upcoming Employment Rights legislation and general global uncertainty, and we need to help them to create more jobs and training opportunities for the next generation.
To stress, I’m not anti a nice year abroad exploring beautiful new places or creating a more varied workforce back home – but when it comes at the expense of nearly a million young people relegated to back benches of society, I would urge caution.
Instead of prioritising a deal for youth mobility, let’s give UK businesses what they need so that they can provide the ladder of opportunity for our forgotten young people.
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