EVERY week I meet young people in Solihull with more talent and more drive than they are ever given credit for.
They don’t lack ambition, what too many of them have lacked is a fair chance to use it.
That gap is real and there’s no point pretending otherwise.
Across the country, around a million young people are now out of work, education or training. Some are our young neighbours, here in Solihull. Alan Milburn’s recent report into youth unemployment put it plainly: the first rung of the career ladder has worn thin.
I feel that unfairness keenly in our corner of the West Midlands.
For decades, prosperity has arrived right on our doorstep and too often walked straight past our young people. The airport. The NEC. The motorways that carry half the country’s traffic past us every day.
Soon the HS2 high-speed rail interchange and thousands of new jobs will arrive. North Solihull sits at one of the crossroads of Britain’s future. Our young people should be standing at that crossroads – not watching the traffic go by.
I’m glad to see the government getting serious about the issue with practical solutions for our young people. By accelerating the government’s youth guarantee, more young people will be offered the chance to earn or learn, with £2.5billion funding 300,000 new work experience and training placements in industries that are hiring right here: construction, health and social care and aviation.
These are not vague promises. The schemes that feed them work. Around four in 10 people who complete a sector-based work academy programme are in steady, paid work within six months, earning, on average, £1,400 a month. That is the difference between a young person drifting or building a life.
What matters now is that those chances land here. We have Birmingham Airport on our doorstep, already running its own aviation academy. We have the Arden Cross site set to become one of the biggest job-creating projects this region has seen in a generation. We’ve recently seen the launch of a programme I’ve fought for for years: the Birmingham east mayoral development corporation – to drive an £11billion regeneration of east Birmingham.
The task for all of us – schools, colleges, employers and me – is to make sure that when those opportunities arrive, it’s a kid from our local community getting the offer.
I came into politics because I believe where you grow up should never decide how far you go. A young person from one of our streets should be able to go as far as their talent will take them – and do it here, close to home, not somewhere far away.
