Kate Green – 2021 Comments on the Pandemic and Young People

The comments made by Kate Green, the Shadow Education Secretary, on 30 March 2021.

Young people have been the face of the Conservatives’ failure to manage the impacts of the pandemic, with spiralling unemployment hitting under-25s hardest.

Successive Conservative Governments have hollowed out the infrastructure needed for young people to train and gain new skills after the pandemic, with those from poorest backgrounds worst hit by declining opportunities in further education.

The Government is failing to live up to its rhetoric on the Kickstart Scheme and apprenticeships incentive which have created just a fraction of the promised opportunities. Ministers’ should heed Labour’s call for a ‘jobs promise’ to guarantee opportunities for the young people who need them, avoiding a lost generation.