Lord Palmer of Childs Hill (LD)

My Lords, I thank the Minister very much—she did not repeat the Statement, but we have read it—and the noble Baroness, Lady Stedman-Scott, for raising so many questions the answers to which I look forward to hearing. We have 739,000 young people aged 16 to 24—nearly 100,000 more than last year—unemployed and sitting on benefits of £338 per month. I make no apologies for repeating this figure, but I give it in numbers and not as a percentage, because percentages are misleading and you cannot really understand what they mean. These unemployed 16 to 24 year-olds are, on average, searching and applying over five months for hundreds of roles, with less than 1% success—so they give up entirely. Yet employers report millions of vacancies remaining unfilled. This is not a shortage of jobs but a failure of matching: the right opportunities for the right candidates remain unsurfaced and undiscovered. Given that the DWP is already piloting matching technologies at some jobcentres, for which I congratulate it—I know about the one in Leicester—can the Minister set out the department’s timeline for scaling these tools nationally across all jobcentres? Critically, what measurable improvement in time to employment does the department expect from this rollout? Additionally, can the Government explain why they are removing the funding for apprenticeships for management? Will they rethink the impact of the national insurance contribution hike on hospitality, retail and tourism? If we dealt with that, it could substantially help with youth unemployment. This is a big problem and I hope the Minister can answer the few questions I have raised and those raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Stedman-Scott.