The Mayor of the West Midlands Richard Parker speaks about his plans to tackle youth unemployment and his own experiences growing up
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00:00Okay, so tell me about the scheme first, what's the reason you've come to launch the scheme here today?
00:06So it's a really important initiative we're reaching today, it's a flagship policy of mine,
00:11launching the West Midlands Plan for Youth and Employment and Training.
00:18And, you know, I've set out from the outset I want this region to be the best place to live, to work,
00:23and for people to build their careers, and that's very difficult for many young people
00:28because we have twice as many young people out of work in this region compared to the national average,
00:33and in some parts of the region, those figures are worse.
00:36So if we're going to build the region I want it to be, we need to face up to and address the issues we've got
00:42of youth unemployment in this region.
00:45And today has been an opportunity for me, now we're out of Perder, to launch the first phase of that plan.
00:52There are a number of elements to it.
00:55One is I want to work with businesses so that our young people can get access to,
01:00I want 20,000 training placements and opportunities, and hopefully apprenticeships with businesses.
01:06Businesses tell me they're short the skills they need to sustain and grow their businesses.
01:12I want to, we'll continue to drive through our Path to Apprenticeship programme,
01:17that is a pre-employment programme for young people, many of them here today.
01:21They go with little or very few qualifications,
01:24and that pre-employment programme is giving them access to jobs and apprenticeships at the end of it.
01:30And we'll continue to support young people with careers advice and coaching experience
01:35and access to the other support they need so they're best prepared for the workplace.
01:39And if we do that, working in partnership going forward with councils and the DWP,
01:45we have an opportunity to address this issue and give young people access to the opportunities they deserve.
01:54One of the things you spoke about in there was about how demoralising unemployment can be,
02:00particularly when you're a young person. Was that something you went through yourself in the past?
02:04I grew up in a very working class bit of Bristol, I left school at 16 initially,
02:09and it was only the fact that someone I worked for spotted some talent in me
02:14and encouraged me to go back to education, which I did a year later to study A-levels.
02:19And I know that getting those A-levels and then an economics degree changed my life and the opportunities that I had.
02:26And I know from the place I came from that access to that education and that training
02:32gave me opportunities that the people around me I grew up with didn't have.
02:36And I want young people in this region to have the same opportunities that I had.
02:42So I know how important it is for young people to get not work, but good work and well-paid jobs
02:49and the difference it can make to them, the way they feel, their wellbeing, their mental health and their self-confidence and self-esteem.
02:56And one young person you've obviously met along the way has been Jake. How inspired are you by his story?
03:02I am inspired by his story and I've said to Jake and to the other young people I've met this morning
03:08that as we develop this programme, I want them to join me and take their stories into the schools they came from
03:14so that they can not just inspire me, but inspire other young people like them in our communities and around the region.
03:24Looking back at the beginning of the programme, when did this plan begin to take shape?
03:31So, as I started to build my programme and my manifesto out, I had over a thousand conversations and meetings
03:40with people and stakeholders across the region. We of course also studied some of the underlying issues that are holding back our economy.
03:48We had a regional economy last year that was one of the worst performing in the country.
03:53So, we start to look at and analyse things that not just need to do better, but the damage a poor form of economy is doing to our community.
04:03So, it starts to evolve through those discussions and our understanding of the issues.
04:07And what really pleases me is the work going on in the Combined Authority and the support of having a civil servant.
04:16So, my role as a politician is to set out the direction of travel and the landing points.
04:21What I've had is fantastic support around me that's helped to deliver and develop the programmes we need to address some of those fault lines that I'm very keen to focus on.
04:30What are some of these fault lines?
04:32So, they are, as I said, we've got too many young people out of work, too many of those people come from our poorest communities
04:39and too many young people from those communities are unable to, for various reasons, access the opportunities that we need to make available to them.
04:48So, the real focus is on recognising those issues, those challenges that young people face.
04:54We cannot afford to have so many young people who have either written themselves off or they believe that others have written themselves off when they're so young.
05:03So, many of those kids, an issue, I've thought about this, I was of the view that they needed a second chance.
05:10What is apparent to me is most of them have not had a first chance and my responsibility, my obligation to them is to give them that best chance in life and that first chance to make the most of themselves.
05:23It's probably an obvious question, but how much do you think the change of government is going to help with this plan?
05:28So, what really pleases me is that across the whole series of my priorities they are very closely or completely aligned to what the new government want to do
05:37and this programme I've got, this West Midlands Youth Plan, is aligned very closely with Labour's commitment to their youth guarantee
05:45and I believe that today that Bridget Philipson are supporting our work here with a quote, the Secretary of State for Education
05:53and I'm looking forward to working with Bridget, Johnny Reynolds, the Business Secretary, and Liz Kendall, the Working Pensions Secretary, in the future
06:02to ensure that we are bringing our resources together in a collective effort to address this issue of youth unemployment, particularly in this region.
06:10One thing people are going to ask is how this is going to be paid for, obviously. Are you able to disclose the costings for it and how the funding for this will work?
06:19So, we've got, the combined authority has a budget of around £170-180 million a year to support training and skills
06:27and we deploy that in the most effective way and that allows us to provide for people post-18, it allows us to provide free access to skills and training up to level 3
06:40and each year that provides opportunities for around 74,000 people. The Path to Apprenticeship Programme has a budget of just over £7 million
06:51and we're hoping that will help around 3,500 young people access opportunities over the next three years.
06:57That money is there now. The work I'll be doing, the Advancement and Expanding Review in the next budget, and I was in Number 10 Downing Street discussing this yesterday,
07:05is putting a case forward to have more devolved resources from Whitehall so we can focus on this issue and address this issue more locally and give it the attention it needs.
07:16And I can tell just how passionate you are about this as well.
07:19No, I am. I think access to opportunity, skills, training changed my life and I want those opportunities to be available to young people across this region
07:30and I want it to change their lives too.