Youth policies are thin on the ground

At a time when a million young people are dealing with the tragic consequences of unemployment, the schemes that were there to help them – the education maintenance allowance, the Future Jobs Fund and the Aim Higher programme to encourage participation in higher education – have been axed.

Youth services are disappearing up and down the country at the very time when they are most needed and the frustration among young people is evident. No one is in the midst of this quiet crisis more than young people. Why then is the writing off of an entire generation not at the top of the political agenda?

Too often, the political debate follows, rather than challenges, the actions of government. Since taking office, Education Secretary Michael Gove has had a relentless focus on free schools, academies and the national curriculum. As I saw first-hand on a recent visit, resources within the department have been shifted to meet this new set of priorities and the wider children's agenda is in serious danger of collapsing.

With an expected rise in the number of schools converting to academy status later this year, it is likely this problem will get worse. It is the task of the education select committee and parliament to put these issues back on the agenda and inject a sense of urgency into the debate.

There is also an alarming shortage of policies to tackle this crisis. The Labour Party last week proposed awarding public contracts only to those businesses that provide apprenticeships for young people. It's a good start, but as one young conference delegate told me yesterday, we urgently need to do more.

If we are going to deliver for the next generation, we need to fundamentally rethink our values and when we award public contracts, instead of going after the cheapest deal, we should support firms that prioritise skills and decent jobs with proper pay and a career structure.

Important as they were, work programmes like the Future Jobs Fund are too easy to dismantle. Instead, government should change the basis on which we do business and write a skills strategy into our national DNA. Short-term price tags are less important than long-term, sustainable opportunities for young people.

Businesses also have a key role to play. Starbucks, for example, employs a young workforce. Forty per cent of its staff are under 25. And it's that fact that has led it to support the charity UK Youth, to champion young people in local communities and, more recently, to explore the idea of an apprenticeship scheme for young people.

It recognises that young people who are unemployed struggle to catch up with their peers over the course of their lifetimes and are more likely to become unemployed again in the future.

That is what makes the crisis facing young people different from the other, important issues crowding the political agenda. There is an urgency to this – young people cannot wait, and nor can we.

But young voices are too seldom heard at the centre of politics. With young people less likely to vote, less likely to be councillors and MPs, and often reluctant to join political parties, it is no wonder that we give too little priority to the issues that directly affect them.

The loss of young people's intense curiosity, interest and energy from party politics is not just a problem for them, but for all of us. If we are to tackle the quiet crisis of youth unemployment, we need urgently to harness their energy and ambition.

Lisa Nandy, Labour MP for Wigan and a member of the education select committee