Apprenticeships are failing the young unemployed

Apprenticeships should act as an avenue to work for the young unemployed. Why isn’t this happening in practice? 

As the government desperately attempts to close the floodgates on youth unemployment, the focus of many commentators has been on innovative new schemes to help members of the ‘lost generation’ on to the jobs ladder. As a result, the failings of older policy initiatives have gone somewhat unnoticed and the shortcomings of existing schemes unscrutinised.

Nowhere else is this more true than in the case of apprenticeships. This particular institution has an impressive lineage, dating back to the late 16^th century, and in its modern incarnation has achieved record participation levels and satisfaction scores. However, like many British institutions, apprenticeship programmes are crumbling around the edges somewhat and struggling to remain relevant in the midst of a changing economy.

At a time when they should be harnessed as a weapon in the fight against youth unemployment, evidence shows that apprenticeships are instead being utilised to make up for the shortfall in training provided by a vast swathe of British firms. The Richards Report on apprenticeships, due to be published this autumn, has already examined background evidence which shows that 70% of positions are taken up by people already in employment. This means that only 3 in 10 apprentices were not already in work when they signed up to the programme (perhaps even less than this, as some apprentices may have worked in different sectors before joining the scheme).

Furthermore, the report revealed that those apprenticeships offered to new recruits are predominantly those in sectors where there is a long tradition of vocational training, like construction and engineering. It remains difficult for young people out of work to secure apprenticeships in areas like business administration, children’s care, health care, and team management.

What seems to be happening in the private sector is that firms are hijacking apprenticeships in order to provide the training to existing staff they can’t- or won’t- pay for themselves. Yes, it is true that apprenticeships were designed to cater for both new and existing employees, but the current imbalance suggests employers are using the access to central funding to get staff training on the cheap.

Turning to the Richards Report again, it is telling that in a EU-wide comparative survey of employer investment in training as a proportion of labour costs, the UK ranks a poor 20^th out of 27- behind Poland and Estonia. As a country, we just do not put a high enough value on training. As a result, the funds reserved for apprenticeships get sucked into the existing workforce and leave little left over for those million unemployed youths struggling to get into the market.

Yet apprenticeships have been proven to unlock the potential of young workers by improving their career prospects and providing them with genuine training opportunities. Almost 9 in 10 apprentices proclaimed themselves satisfied with their experience, and a massive 81% stated that enrolling on an apprenticeship scheme had improved their overall career prospects. Meanwhile, Richards revealed that individuals with an advanced apprenticeship earned on average 22% more than those with Level 2 qualifications such as NVQs and BTECs.

In order to maximise the impact apprenticeships can have on the young unemployed, the government needs to look critically at the programme design and expand it further into the private sector while rolling it out aggressively across the public sector. Lord Adonis recently exposed Whitehall’s duplicitous attitude to apprenticeships, extolling their virtues in public while hiring very few apprentices behind the scenes. In the very department where apprenticeship policy is formulated, the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, Adonis revealed that only 19 people are employed as apprentices out of a staff of 2,500.

Government departments should be mandated to employ a strict quota of new recruits as apprentices in order to show their faith in the scheme and endow apprenticeships with the aura of quality and prestige they desperately need to compete with Higher Education as a route into work. In addition, apprenticeships in the private sector should be more closely tailored to cater for 16-19 year-old NEETs by adding funding incentives to employers who enrol new recruits and by making it a statutory requirement for all large firms to take on a specified number of apprentices per year.

Employers need some tough love when it comes to apprenticeship policy. The evidence shows that individuals who complete their programmes make a workforce more productive, more motivated, and more satisfied. They add value to an employer that far outstrips the initial investment in their training. Policy now needs to be refined to give more young people the chance to prove their worth in this way, and prove that apprenticeships can be a potent cure to the epidemic of youth unemployment.

Louie Woodall is Assistant Editor of the Young Fabians Blog 

Spending on education: a divisive issue

Recent polling commissioned by the Fabian Society unearthed some uncomfortable truths about British attitudes towards spending on higher and further education.

The findings of the joint YouGov/Fabian poll showed that 35% of the population would prefer the level of HE/FE provision to fall and reap the benefits of reduced taxation in its stead. A further 45% believe that the balance between provision and taxation is about right, a figure that should worry HE/FE campaigners as it suggests that the electorate implicitly endorses the £449 million of cuts imposed on university budgets and £200 million taken from adult education at FE colleges since 2010.

Most concerning of all, however, was the discovery that almost as many 18 to 24 year-olds support a cut in spending on colleges and universities as back an increase. This means that the very constituency poised to lose out the most from continued budget cuts are divided on how to confront the issue.

Such findings will alarm activists working with the NUS and National Campaign Against Fees And Cuts, as two years of hard work combating the government’s restructuring of tertiary education seem to have done little to bring the majority of young people firmly on the side of opposing unjustified cuts on teaching, research, and building budgets.

However, what the findings hint at above all is the deep divisions between those young adults in education, and those out of it. Statistics from the Department of Business, Innovation & Skills show that in the third quarter of 2011, 23% of 18-24 year-olds were in full-time education, with an additional 16.2% in part-time education or training. This means that well over half of all young adults were not enrolled in any form of education at all. To put matters into even starker terms, it turns out that there were more 18-24 year-olds claiming Job Seeker’s Allowance last August (408,000) than there were graduates (320,000).

When the facts are laid out as barely as this, it can be of little surprise to find that the percentage favouring increased spending on education is so low. Those young people who never went to university, or were denied the opportunity of formal training, are more likely to favour spending on programmes to help the unemployed- since around 1 in 6 young people are currently classed as NEETs (Not in Education, Employment or Training).

Thus those championing increased investment in HE/FE institutions need to rethink their campaigns in order to engage those young people who do not attend university or college. One way to go about this would be to emphasise the great economic, social, and even health benefits to be reaped from a strengthened university sector. Research by the New Economic Foundation found that the public bonus generated by universities could amount to as much as £212 million per year, on top of and beyond the £33.4 billion the sector contributes to the UK’s annual GDP.

Those opposed to spending money on tertiary education should also be alerted to the fact that the sector is a massive provider of jobs, accounting for 1.2% of all UK full-time employment in 2007. In addition, as the Universities UK report highlighted in 2008, “for every 100 full time jobs within the universities themselves, more than 100 other full time equivalent jobs were generated through knock-on effects.”

Students and campaigners should use such research to argue that HE/FE institutions are powerful engines of economic growth, which foster employment opportunities for those who attend them and those who do not. They should also make the most of the ‘invisible’ benefits the sector provides, such as inspiring greater political interest among the population and encouraging higher levels of interpersonal trust.

The Fabian polling revealed that swing voters support a decrease in funding for tertiary education. If the sector is not to be forgotten at the next election, those who champion it need to embrace those young people who do not attend university or college and encourage them to join the fight by emphasising the economic and social benefits to be gained by boosting investment.

Every young person has the right to debate their education provision. However, only by joining together as a cohesive whole can this young generation change the nature of this debate and secure the future of HE/FE for the next.

Louie Woodall is Assistant Editor of the Young Fabians Blog

Well-being in an era of low growth

In this member post, Charlie Samuda gives us an update from the Future Shocks Policy Commission.

The 2012 YF Policy Commissions are addressing the problems of ‘youth in crisis’. Each of the commissions will deal with a specific political challenge faced by Britain’s young today.

The focus of the Future Shocks commission goes a little beyond the now to the problems this generation will face when they stop being young. Decades of slow growth, a growing population, an ageing demographic and environmental degradation – none of these are simply current issues, and none can be solved over the course of the next Labour government, nor the one after that. But we need to identify the shocks that are waiting over the horizon in order to develop policies that can mitigate the impact of these events before their effects are felt.

The first discussion to be tackled by our policy commission was the long-term consequences of the economic slump on social mobility and individual well-being. The event featured Danny Dorling, Professor of Human Geography at the University of Sheffield, who has written widely on social injustice in the UK. The stark conclusion of this discussion was that without policy intervention, the likelihood was that- with the exception of the very highest earners- this and future generations would suffer a deteriorating quality of life.

Taking the longer-term view, Danny pointed out that not only was it likely the gap between working- and middle-class households would grow, but also that there would be an even greater divide between those on middle incomes and those at the very top of the earnings scale. He also claimed that the more salaries increased, the harder it would be to fulfill the goal of full employment. Imagine a senior executive takes on ever longer hours; sure his salary increases, but he doesn’t feel any more fulfilled or work any more productively. In addition, the additional extra work he takes on prevents his organization taking on extra staff.

The difficulties preventing young people getting on the housing ladder have been well documented. However, if you look a little further into the future it is also easy to imagine a world where buying a house (and the security that comes with home ownership) is only open to those with very large amounts of capital, with the remainder of society being trapped in the uncertainty of renting. This thus magnifies the importance of inherited wealth. Those young people who will be able to buy in the future will not be those who only need ‘a bit of help from mum and dad’, but those who have significant levels of wealth passed over to them from a previous generation. It is not hard to imagine the secondary social consequences of such a starkly polarized housing market. The policy group discussed possible remedies in this area that could be achievable over the longer-term, and besides the obvious need for an extensive house building programme, a progressive tax on land was identified as a potential solution.

Finally, the future of skills and education was discussed. Looking at the next 20-30 years, the participants raised concerns about the increasing narrowing of skills occurring in the UK jobs market. We seem to be heading towards an economy where there is only a single – graduate – pathway to a career that provides a decent quality of life and financial security. Instead we should be developing a broader skills base that gives young people the option to be flexible with their further education. One policy proposal was for the government to grant a young person the right to 2-3 years higher education, redeemable up to the age of 30. This education voucher could be used for vocational or job specific training once the individual had identified a career choice they wanted to pursue. This would change the current system where education is ‘front loaded’ before young people enter the jobs market.

The aim of the policy commission is to identify solutions that enable governments to build resilience against these future shocks. With this discussion we are pleased to have begun this conversation. Our next event will discuss the challenges of building a sustainable economy in a carbon constrained world – where a changing climate and deteriorating energy security will shape policy choices. This event will take place on Tuesday 24th July, at 7pm in the Exhibition room at the Geography Department of University College London (entrance on Gower St).

We look forward to keeping to policy conversation going.

Charlie Samuda is a Young Fabians member

Labour needs to remember its core values to help save the North East

In this member post, Daniel Robert Tye reports back from a panel debate where Young Fabians discussed how Labour could help secure the future of the north-east.

This week saw the Young Fabians host their first of many events in the north-east, titled ‘What about the north-east?’: a question-and-answer session discussing the economic and political future of the region. The event was attended by a group of around ten to fifteen people interested in discussing the future of the north-east with three panelists made up of Chi Onwurah MP, Shadow Business, Innovation and Skills Minister, Cllr Simon Henig, Leader of Durham County Council and Graeme Henderson, a research fellow at IPPR North.

The event kicked off with the three panellists discussing their own take on the economic and political issues that the  north-east faces. The argument was raised that if we don’t get the politics right, then we won’t get the economy right. The three panellists all agreed that the north-east had some positive economic stories, such as a thriving tourism industry (an estimated £4 billion of the north-east economy comes from the tourism sector alone) and pioneering low-carbon manufacturing with the new Nissan Leaf being built at the Nissan Plant in Sunderland.

Yet the feeling was that the region was going to go through a prolonged period of pain and struggle. It was raised by the panel that the Tory-led coalition was cutting spending in the north-east disproportionally compared to other regions in the UK – something that has been public knowledge since David Cameron’s infamous Paxman interview in 2010. With a fragile economy, the highest unemployment rate in the country and the ever growing chasm of the North-South divide, the panel agreed that the north-east would be the last UK region to come out of this Tory-driven double dip recession, and would suffer the greatest long-term impact as a result.

The panel then took a wide spectrum of questions from the floor, ranging from the impact of Scottish independence on the north-east to how to develop regional infrastructure, such as Newcastle Airport, to help the economy. One young member raised the issue that the north-east needs more access to capital to help support small, start-up businesses, along with a new culture within the education system to help develop and nurture the next generation of young entrepreneurs.

Discussion moved from the economic future of the north-east to the political, with questions such as how a Labour administration in 2015 can help local authorities in the north-east become stronger in dealing with local issues. It was felt that the Tory-led government has no real mandate to implement the cuts and disastrous economic policy on the region due to their lack of support and the dominance of Labour MPs in the region. This led to a question on whether the debate on regional assemblies should re-opened. Panellists were reluctant to endorse any new elected bodies because of a general feeling that there was no public appetite in creating a new home for more politicians, whose popularity is at an all-time low. A counter-argument was raised that people were not one hundred percent behind the idea of devolved government back in the late 1990s, but that now citizens are calling for further devolved powers to go to Holyrood and Cardiff. The groundwork may have been laid for regional devolution to become a reality, but the prevailing argument was that the North-east needed stronger local authorities rather than a further layer of bureaucracy and a separate legislature.

The event was wrapped up with final comments from the three panellists who all believed that in order for the north-east to succeed both politically and economically, the Labour Party had to regain a strong sense of its core values and identity. This process is already underway, with Labour seeking to address the widespread apathy towards politics felt by many in the region. Ed Miliband’s speech at the Durham Miner’s Gala was one clear attempt to re-engage the disillusioned core voters of the Labour party, and should encourage further efforts to revive interest in politics among the locals.

The key lesson learnt at the event was that for Labour to be truly effective in 2015, it must strike a balance between winning back the South and not forgetting about the north-east, and the  north more broadly. For a 2015 Labour manifesto, we must propose policies that will not only bring new voters into the fold but also those five million core voters we lost since 1997 as a result of disillusionment with New Labour.

Daniel Robert Tye is a Young Fabians member

Our Phantom Constitution

Last week’s heated debate over Lords reform brought unwelcome attention to the curious void at the heart of British democracy: our lack of a written, codified constitution.

Fabians have agonised over the structure of the British constitutional settlement since the Society’s inception, and founders Beatrice and Sidney Webb tackled the challenge head-on in ‘A Constitution for the Socialist Commonwealth of Great Britain.’ The Webbs’ defined the challenge facing progressives in the following terms:

“The problem to be solved is how to remould the social institutions that have come into existence in such a way as to evoke, in all men and women, and not merely a favoured few, all their latent powers, to stimulate the whole population…to the utmost possible exercise of their faculties.”

Few would argue that our current constitutional arrangement empowers every member of the citizenry in this way. However, would a formalised, written constitution really help balance out the current democratic deficit?

Britain has frequently flirted with the idea of a written constitution, but never advanced the relationship to one of solid commitment. At present, British democracy rests on a phantom constitution, comprising a hodgepodge of statutes, Acts, conventions and scraps of common law. It is a confusing, nebulous, and- most importantly- pliable doctrine that allows the government of the day a great deal of flexibility in defining the limits of what is and what is not ‘constitutional.’

The cornerstone of the current settlement is the principle of parliamentary sovereignty, which confers on Westminster supreme power to create and amend the laws of the land. What is interesting about this is that from a legal perspective, anything parliament decrees is law, and cannot be overruled. The devolved administrations in Scotland and Wales do exercise power, but their legal right to do so could be revoked by the Westminster Parliament at any time. No wonder the SNP are clamouring for a referendum. The same is true of Britain’s relationship with the European Union. The British government is obliged to conform to EU legislation as a condition of its membership- but it has not ‘constitutionally’ sacrificed any sovereignty to those across the channel.

A written constitution on the American model, meanwhile, formally sets out the legal powers of each level of government. The codified constitution serves both to enshrine the rights of the people and limit the powers of government in resolute terms. Yet written constitutions do little in practice to bring clarity to what these rights and limits entail. Take the classic example of the second amendment to the US constitution which supposedly guarantees the rights of all citizens “to bear arms.” Some say the wording unequivocally states that gun ownership is a constitutional right. Others say that it is qualified by arguing that the framers meant that weapon ownership was required only to defend the nation from external invaders.

However the problems with a written constitution go deeper than this, and should make all British cheerleaders wary of what they support.

All constitutions are the brainchildren of established political elites, and arguably serve to entrench the rights and powers of these elites over the rest of the population. Imagine how the process would play out in Britain: a cross-party commission of MPs and Lords would be established, take soundings from the most senior wonks in the think-tank world, debate principles with constitutional experts and foreign advisers, and engage in superficial ‘evidence-gathering’ exercises with the general public. After several years, the polished manuscript, approved by the government of the day and backed by the opposition, enshrining in perpetuity those principles that do not threaten the political status quo anyway, will be sold to the people and voted on via referendum. It is doubtful whether any constitution conceived in this way could really disperse power vertically down through British society, giving the man in the street a greater legal say in the running of the Kingdom.

An even greater problem is that any written constitution would have to be predicated by the abolition of the monarchy. It would be incongruent with the principles on which a democratic constitution is written to have it begin with the affirmation of an unelected head of state’s powers and prerogatives. Until Britain is ready to become a republic in both practice and principle, a written constitution is an impossible prospect.

However, the greatest problem with a written constitution is essentially an ideological one. An interesting argument made on Conservapedia suggests that constitutions implicitly endorse the idea of a transcendent moral order, a body of rigid universal laws that are both unchangeable and inalienable. Modern society, however, is sensitive to the fact that moral ‘laws’ are relativistic, and cannot be ordained for all peoples for all times. A written constitutions’ inflexibility harms the ability of progressives to genuinely reform society.

Look at South Africa- until 1994 its constitution legally debarred black citizens from engaging in the political process on an equal basis with white citizens. Even today, the written constitutions of Sweden and Denmark guarantee the positions of unelected heads of state. The latter one has been rewritten five times over the last two centuries in order to keep up with the times. Those who believe a written constitution is a magic wand that casts the spell of greater democracy over its host country are sorely mistaken.

In fact, as long as our constitution is unwritten, as long as sovereignty is invested in Parliament alone, the people have a better means of shaping the law of the land- through campaigning, lobbies, petitions, and other mechanisms. Vernon Bognador, Britain’s foremost constitutional expert, suggests one way to unlock the floodgates holding back the democratic impulses of the people would be to allow members of the public to launch initiatives, like they do in the US, allowing people to trigger referendums on issues important to their area.

Our world is evolving at a rapid pace. Ten years from now, there may be no such thing as a United Kingdom. One hundred years from now, a third of the British Isles may be underwater, and half our citizenry may be over the age of 100. How could a constitution drafted in 2012 enable the lawmakers of the future the flexibility required to legislate for the problems they face? Could a written constitution even tie Britain to an unjust, unfair body of laws that prevents society changing for the better? As long as such questions remain unanswered, the possibility of a written constitution remains remote.

Better a phantom constitution than a monstrous one.

Louie Woodall is Assistant Editor of the Young Fabians Blog

Generation Crisis: Better, Stronger, Closer Communities

How can young people contribute to thriving communities they feel at home in?

The question of how young people can feel at home in their local communities and have a positive role to play in society seems ever more urgent at a time when young people are the easy target for Coalition cuts and dangerous policy experiments.

In his welfare speech a few weeks ago we heard David Cameron proposing that the best way to cut the benefits bill even further would be to stop young people under the age of 25 claiming Housing Benefit and suggesting that they should be sent home to live with their parents.  Working at the YMCA, I have already heard worried and vulnerable young people say that they would be homeless without this support; moving back home just simply isn’t an option for most young people who receive Housing Benefit.  Mr. Cameron, we don’t all have a family property portfolio to fall back on; young people today have very limited options when it comes to finding a place to live in our twenties.

The housing debate was brought to the fore last month when the Joseph Rowntree Foundation published a piece of research highlighting the housing prospects for young people between now and 2020. Unsurprisingly, there will be a sharp increase in the number of young people living in private rented accommodation, projected to rise by 1.5 million young renters compared to 2008.This is a worry due to the rapidly increasing rental levels, particularly in urban areas where demand for housing is always high. Private rented accommodation can often be of poor quality, especially at the lower end of the income spectrum.

How do we solve the housing crisis for young people? Is the stark contrast in living standards between older and younger generations causing tension in our communities? How do we prevent young families living in poor quality, over-crowded accommodation? Does the answer lie in Continental approaches to renting, whereby tenancies are long-term and rental levels remain stable? Is the aspiration for everybody to own their own home sustainable in the long-term?  There is no single, easy answer to these questions, but young people are becoming increasingly marginalised in their own communities by inadequate housing policy. Tory propaganda about young benefit scroungers only serves to compound the problem.

The Commission on Better, Stronger, Closer Communities will be looking at several key themes and in addition to the question of affordable, good quality housing we will be examining:

• The negative portrayal of young people in the media
• How we can utilise technology and online networks for communities of the future
• How we can overcome the increasing tensions in our communities between the young and older generations, the rich and poor and those of different social classes.

As our local services are being cut and closed across the country, communities need to look at new ways to support young people and help them play their full part and achieve their full potential in society. Whilst the media reinforces the view that communities are breaking down, grassroots activism led by young people has never been stronger. The Commission on Better, Closer, Stronger communities will examine how we can harness this activism and sense of purpose to help rebuild our communities so that they can offer all citizens, including young people, the chance to play an active and positive role within them.

If you’ve got strong views on these issues and you’re interested in getting involved, we will be hosting several policy events over the coming months, so keep an eye out on the blog and website, or alternatively follow me on Twitter: @MaryHillLondon for updates.

Mary Hill is a Young Fabians member

Can Brussels deliver jobs for young people?

In this guest post, Young Fabian member Tom Williams reports on a meeting of young socialists at the European Parliament.

What should have been a friendly gathering of young socialist activists from across Europe in Brussels soon became a collective cry for help.

Much fun was had as cultures clashed over politically correct buffets filled with food from across the continent, but the desperation was palpable as young people, betrayed by governments of all political colours, called upon Members of the European Parliament to take collective action in their interest.

Many on the Left rightly see those working in those shimmering glass monuments to European collectivism as the only people capable of tackling the enormous cross-border crisis in youth unemployment. The meeting of young socialists, organised by the European Parliament’s Group of Socialists and Democrats, was an opportunity to form international solutions to this most pressing crisis. The message they conveyed to the Parliament was clear: young people have been neglected by governments more concerned with rescuing Europe’s disgraced banks from collapse.

Spanish MEP Sergio Gutierrez Prieto was a welcome guest at the discussion. At 29 years of age, he belongs to the same generation as those struggling across the continent to find work. The crisis has affected his family too- his twin brother is unemployed. According to Prieto, “We belong to a generation of Europeans who grew up believing that the EU was more than an economic project. We thought that it was also a social project, and this is lacking now.” This has become even more of a concern following the crisis in the Eurozone. The calls of working people have gone unheeded. Demonstrations against austerity are being held across Spain, and violent clashes between protestors and police have become commonplace.

This generation of young people faces a grave threat to its future prosperity. In Brussels, the meeting learned that vocal opposition to austerity measures is being suppressed by force. Europe’s youth are being prevented from fighting in defence of their own life chances. For many of those present, this was the only opportunity they had to speak out.

The participants, from all twenty-seven member states, drafted an appeal to heads of state and to the European Commission, featuring fifteen points that the leader of the Group of Socialists and Democrats in the European Parliament, Hannes Swoboda, has sent to political leaders. The appeal demands a European Youth Guarantee and calls for other young Europeans to get together to prepare a European Citizens’ Initiative.

An important section of the appeal is the call for the implementation of the Charter for Quality Internships & Apprenticeships across Europe. John Ringer, a London Young Labour committee member, spoke strongly in favour of this, having undertaken several internships himself. Labour’s Stephen Hughes responded with admirable spirit, but it was still not clear what powers Brussels has to ensure interns are paid a fair wage and to ensure they are open to all.

The final appeal included a demand for the S&D members to fight for quality traineeships where young people can gain real experience, rather than simply serve coffee to their bosses. It also calls for apprenticeships and internships to be regulated to ensure high quality and decent working conditions.

During the discussion, Spanish MEP Eider Gardiazabal explained that she belongs to a multi-party group in the European Parliament working on youth issues. One of their main objectives is to make sure that traineeships and internships are fair; she invited anyone who wants to know more to get in touch with her.

A fascinating contribution was made by Héla Khamarou of Génération Précaire, an organisation that started in Paris before the crisis, in response to the drastic problem of young people being stuck in a cycle of endless internships with no prospects for future employment. It is similar to Intern Aware, a UK-based pressure group cited by Héla as a superb example of young people taking the reins and fighting for themselves in the face of institutional inertia. Héla explained that Génération Précaire has created its own rating agency to rate politicians by their attitudes towards young people. You can check the rating given to each candidate on their website.

The crisis in youth unemployment will not be solved solely by young people, or by national governments acting alone. Part of the problem is the international nature of the debt crises hitting governments across Europe. However, Brussels seems paralysed by institutional inertia, assuming that it is the role of national governments to ensure young people have a right to work.

What needs to be emphasised to our MEPs is that it is the responsibility of Brussels to step in where national solutions are simply not enough. Our government may be failing us, but other governments in Europe have also demonstrated a stunning reluctance to tackle the problem. There is hope: the election of President Hollande has been lauded as a victory for young people. Yet if European member states fail to cooperate, an end to the crisis seems a distant prospect. This will be of no comfort to the many young people we heard from who remain out of work.

Tom Williams is a Young Fabians member 

Time for Under-30 Shortlists

There is one democratic deficit at the heart of Parliament that has gone unnoticed for far too long.

Yes, it is true that in both Houses women are still woefully underrepresented, as are black people, those belonging to ethnic minorities, and the LGBTQ community. However, most striking of all is the underrepresentation of young people in Parliament, despite the fact that the vast majority of legislation made in the two chambers directly affects young people’s present and future lives.

Following the 2010 election, just 14 MPs were elected to the Commons under the age of 30. This represents a mere 2% of the membership of the lower House, in a country where young people aged 16-34 make up 25% of the population.

In the upper chamber, the age bias is even more pronounced. Not a single Peer is under the age of 30, while an astonishing 373 of them are over the age of 70. This despite the fact that a Peer need only be older than 21 to qualify for a seat.

A number of arguments have been made to justify the effective barring of young people from Parliament. Unsurprisingly, many of them revolve around the suggestion that young people are incapable of performing the work of an MP or Peer, and lack the real-world experience necessary to navigate the hallowed halls of Westminster. Some would also no doubt claim that young people are politically incompetent, and pose an electoral liability to their parent party. David Cameron must have thought this after Chole Smith’s disastrous Newsnight interview (she was former ‘Baby of the House’, at 27, after her election in 2009).

However, similar arguments were made in decades past to justify excluding women from the franchise. Liberal PM Herbert Asquith claimed that there was no place for women in “the dust and turmoil” of the political world, and even as late as 1920- after they had been granted the vote- argued that they were “a dim, impenetrable lot, for the most part hopelessly ignorant of politics, credulous to the last degree, and flickering with gusts of sentiment like a candle in the wind.”

Compare this to some of the comments made in response to eighteen-year-old Kate Taylor’s challenge for a seat on Plymouth City Council this May. One stated that “she should be a tea-maker whilst learning the ropes. I’ll be amazed if anyone takes her seriously.” Such snipes are characteristic of the attitudes the wider electorate holds towards young politicians.  Seemingly anyone under the age of 30 who puts themselves up for election is denounced as a self-serving “career politician” by the media, held in contempt by the electors, and sneered at by everyone for their supposed pretentiousness.

Yet at the same time political scientists, MPs, and the more astute commentators in the media bemoan the lack of youth engagement in politics and agonise over the fact that our democracy is in danger of stagnating under the control of an ever-growing rump of “grey voters” over 60 years of age.

I believe that in order to inspire young people to vote, we need to offer them candidates who can truly represent them. An influx of young politicians at all levels of governance will provide a pantheon of role models who young people will want to connect with, and who will be capable of motivating them to get engaged in the political process.

Labour should lead the way by piloting under-30 shortlists in council wards where there is a high density of young people, and then expanding the scheme to encompass parliamentary selections in specially identified seats.

The party will have to take a leap of faith that other sections of the electorate will not be put off voting by the youthfulness of these candidates. Labour will need to make the case for their inclusion- perhaps starting by flagging up that current and past MPs well into their forties and fifties fiddled expenses, accepted bribes from lobbyists, and generally acted in an immature fashion when entrusted with the public good.

Women-only shortlists proved contentious in their time, and still do today. Under-30 shortlists will no doubt prove the same. However, it is up to Labour to bite the bullet and embrace them wholeheartedly if they truly want to become the party that bests represents the whole of Britain.

Louie Woodall is Assistant Editor of the Young Fabians Blog

Labour should be advocating the economic case for equal pay

Equal pay returned to the news agenda in ugly fashion last week as French tennis player Gilles Simon said that female tennis stars don’t deserve their equal Wimbledon prize money.

According to Simon, men’s tennis is “more attractive” than the women’s game and equal pay means that some top-100 male players are unable to pay their coaches because they don’t receive enough money from tournaments. Simon also claimed controversially that all the 128 men in the draw agreed with him.

The swift rebuttal by the Women’s Tennis Association and top female players including Maria Sharapova and Serena Williams, while welcome,  indicates a wider problem with the debate around equal pay: the ‘us vs. them’ mentality.  In an age of austerity, it is imperative to counter this distorted view that equality somehow represents a cost to male workers. The Labour Party, as pioneers and long-term proponents of the equal pay cause, should push not just the moral reasons for having an equally remunerated workforce but must also advocate the strong economic case for equal pay.

More than four decades after Harold Wilson’s Labour Government introduced the Equal Pay Act, women still earn an average hourly wage of 10.5% less than their male counterparts.  In a progressive society this simply isn’t good enough.  Moreover, with the country back in recession this gender pay gap is too much of a financial burden on the UK economy.   A study on gender equality, growth and employment in the EU has found that equity between the sexes in the workforce has the potential to boost GDP by 15 – 45% in member states.  If women are paid fairly for the work they do their tax contributions will be higher, they will be less dependent on male partners for financial support, and they will be less reliant on state benefits. Consumer spending would receive a boost as well.  The economic case for equal pay is undeniable.

So is the Tory-led Government implementing effective strategies to achieve the aim of equal pay?  The answer is no.  The Equality Act, introduced in Parliament by Harriet Harman in the dying days of the last Labour Government, contained a provision to require private sector employers with over 250 employees to publish information relating to the gender pay gap in their organisations.  This part of the new law has not been enforced by the Coalition, which has preferred to trial a voluntary approach to gender pay reporting called ‘Think, Act, Report’ (TAR).  This is despite the fact that some 46% of UK companies with more than 250 employees have said that reducing the gender pay gap within their businesses was of ‘fairly low priority’, ‘low priority’ or  ‘not a priority at all’.  Indeed, the TAR scheme, set up nearly a year ago and targeting 12,150 organisations, currently lists only 34 businesses as ‘supporters’ on its website.   It would seem that the voluntary approach has failed.

So how can Labour expose these Government failings and keep up the pressure on companies to instigate equal pay?  Central to this objective is the need to alert the public to the untapped economic potential of equal pay.  This means we must frame our push for equality through the language of growth. When we discuss George Osborne’s failed austerity strategy we must remind voters that this Government’s laissez faire attitude to equal pay is contributing to the UK being in double-dip recession.

In addition we must continue to lobby the Government to make gender pay reporting compulsory in all businesses with over 250 employees.  This requirement needn’t be seen as a ‘stick’ to bash big businesses with, rather, with rival companies required to release equivalent data, it is hoped that such gender pay transparency can act as an incentivising ‘carrot’ for businesses to implement equal pay across their organisations, to attract and keep the best female talent.

A ‘race to the top’ to achieve a gold star equality rating will serve to benefit the economy, the government and businesses in the long-term.

Anna Rawlings is a Young Fabians member