Where is the long-term plan on job Šcreation?

This is one of the few issues that receives cross-party support, so it was disappointing to see the lack of imagination in the Budget on how to tackle it. Pinning all our hope on apprenticeships in the service sector and traditional blue-collar trades is short-sighted - both are synonymous with low pay and vulnerable to the unstoppable forces of globalisation. There appeared little in the Budget for the development of technology-driven jobs and industries that the economy will need to find in great numbers if it is to offer the children of today a prosperous adulthood.

Something that is crying out for the Treasury to reform is the Youth Contract. As we revealed on our website last month, the flagship government training scheme for 16- and 17-year-olds resulted in just five of 1,700 "extended cohort" young people – young offenders, looked-after children and those who did badly in GCSEs – remaining in education, employment or training for at least five months. There were questions over the £1bn scheme before, but with funding tight, we have to get more bang for our buck than a 0.03 per cent success rate.