Andrew Cooper

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Dowd. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Amber Valley (Linsey Farnsworth) on securing this important debate on NEETs. This is an issue that affects the future of our young people, and it is a persistent challenge that we must tackle head on. In Winsford in my constituency, the challenge is particularly acute: the proportion of young people who are NEET is 5 percentage points higher than the borough average. In the interests of time, I will make a couple of points that I hope the Minister will consider when he takes the floor. First, sustained funding to tackle this issue needs to be a priority. In the past, this was a specific focus of the European social fund, and schemes such as the education maintenance allowance provided a direct financial incentive to stay in further education. The Government have identified funding through the youth guarantee to ensure that all young people have access to the support they need to earn or learn. That funding needs to be sustained in the long term, to operate across Departments, and to measurably target reducing NEETs not in a decade’s time, but in this Parliament. Secondly, I ask the Minister to look specifically at the damage done to further education in my constituency by the 2016 review into post-16 education in Cheshire. There is a direct relationship between the distance a young person has to travel for FE and the likelihood of their sustaining that place and gaining a qualification. Mid Cheshire has literally been caught in a perfect storm, with Cheshire FE colleges responding to their quality and financial problems through consolidation and divestment out of my constituency. That remains as unacceptable today as it was then. I urge the Minister to look into the issue and to commission a new review with a focus on undoing the damage caused by the 2016 review. I hope that the Minister can set out how we can ensure that every young person, regardless of where they live, has the chance to learn, grow and succeed. I hope he will also set out what targeted support the Government can provide for towns with persistently high NEET levels, including funding for local engagement initiatives, so we can unlock the full potential of every young person in an area such as Winsford.