Out of work young people are ‘huge challenge for country’ – PMpublished at 15:13 British Summer Time
15:13 BST
Turning now to the nearly one million young people out of work in the UK, Starmer says they are a “huge challenge for the country”, and that the system is “broken and needs to be mended”.
Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown says the UK has a “long-term trend of unemployment increasing every month”, adding that it now stands at 4.7% with 1.6m people out of work.
He says this is “perplexing”, citing an inquiry into job centres – released on 2 July – which found that there were 2,100 work coaches in these centres than the year before.
Clifton-Brown pushes the prime minister on how this can be reversed.
Starmer says the employment rate is up, 0.8% over the year, and unemployment rate is up – which he acknowledges could be seen as a “slight contradiction”.
He explains this contradiction by pointing out that the inactivity numbers have gone down. This, he says, means that those not looking for work have begun to look for work, meaning the employment rate is going up at the same time that the unemployment rate rises.
The PM says this highlights the importance of work coaches in job centres to support people into work.