The Work and Pensions Secretary has vowed young people will have “chances and choices” to build a better life as she launched a £45 million scheme, the day after she gave a speech defending welfare cuts.
Liz Kendall visited Liverpool’s Anfield Stadium on Thursday to announce the programme to support thousands of 18-21-year-olds into education, work and training.
Ms Kendall said the scheme would “make sure every young person is earning or learning and gets the chances and choices they deserve to build a better life”.
The Leicester West MP said it was “moving” to meet young care leavers at the football stadium, where a careers fair was taking place.
She said she met one woman who was helped by charity Thrive after her mother died and now had an apprenticeship in construction.
“If you’ve just lost your parents, trying to cope with that, let alone build a life, can feel overwhelming and that is the real difference, that this funding will help to give more young women like that the chances and choices they deserve for a better future,” she said.
The visit came the day after Ms Kendall gave a speech defending plans to cut £5 billion in welfare reforms.
Speaking on Thursday, she told the PA news agency: “For people who can work, they need opportunities to do so and, for too long, people have been written off, condemned to a life on benefits, given no help and support and that’s not good enough.
“We are spending too much money on the costs of failure.”
She said the Government was funding new skills and training.
She did not answer whether scrapping the two-child benefit cap would be looked at but said the Government would be publishing a “bold and ambitious” child poverty strategy.
She added: “There is a lot, lot more to do, but we are absolutely determined to drive down poverty and drive up opportunity to give people the chance of a better future.”
The proposed welfare cuts have been criticised by charities and 100 Labour MPs are reported to have signed a letter urging ministers to scale back the plans.
Ms Kendall said: “I think the British people want people who can work to work and I think they want people who can never work to be supported. That’s what we’re doing.”
The investment announced in Liverpool is part of the Government’s youth guarantee and will see the region, along with areas in the West of England, Tees Valley, Cambridgeshire and Peterborough, West Midlands, East Midlands and two parts of London, receive £5 million investment to become a “trailblazer” and match young people to job or training opportunities.
Mayor of the Liverpool City Region Steve Rotheram, who was at the event in Anfield, said: “When I travel across our region, I feel fortunate to meet some of the best and brightest young people in the country.
“But, for too long, too many of them have been held back from getting on in life, not because of a lack of talent, but by a lack of opportunity – and I have made it my mission to put that right.”
Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson said: “The Youth Guarantee is a genuine game-changer for young people in England.
“I’m delighted Liverpool is leading the way as one of our trailblazers – ensuring every young person has support to develop essential skills for work and life at the critical early stage of their careers.
“Every young person deserves the best life chances — and we won’t stop until everyone has a level playing field to succeed.”
