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    MP calls for bankers' bonus pot to cut youth unemployment

    Epolitix – Thu, Jul 14, 2011

    A Labour MP has called on the government to use bankers' bonuses to provide apprenticeships for jobless youngsters with small businesses.

    Steve McCabe (Selly Oak) called for a programme of new training and employment schemes for people aged between 16 and 25, better careers guidance and help for companies offering on-the-job experience.

    Introducing a bill under the ten minute rule, he called for a "mechanism through which banks and other providers of financial services are required to allocate part of their bonus payment budget to support these measures".

    McCabe told the Commons: "How can we be optimistic about the future if we are prepared to subject our young people to a life of worklessness?"

    His Youth Employment Bill would bring "fresh initiative" to tackle youth unemployment, saying it could have "damaging long-term effects".

    He added: "We owe it to our young people to do everything we can to prevent this scar of unemployment."

    McCabe said an employment programme is needed that offers "hope and opportunity, and we need training designed to address the structural gaps in our system".

    He concluded: "The public are ahead of us on this matter, because they know that we should fund such a programme from a levy on the money set aside for unearned bonuses for wealthy bankers, who are continuing to pay themselves money that they have not earned while the rest of the country suffers as a result. "

    But the plan was opposed by fellow Labour MP John McDonnell who believed it failed to address unsafe working conditions for apprentices.

    The Hayes and Harlington MP asked: "How will apprentices be made safe when they go onto the shop floor itself?"

    "In 2003, nine apprentices died as a result of the lack of health and safety in the companies in which they were placed."

    He said the previous Labour government improved working practices, but claimed there was "a tragedy waiting to happen" because of a coalition shake-up meaning 25 Skills Funding Council workers would be sacked in September.

    "This Bill does not address that issue," said McDonnell, who wanted any new training and employment agency to be subject to health and safety laws.

    MPs voted 241 to 35, majority 206, to allow McCabe to bring in his Bill.

    The bill will be read a second time on Friday November 25 but is unlikely to become law without being allocated government time for debate.

     

    4 comments

    • jimfo
      jimfo  •  10 months ago
      Where do you think the money for bankers bonuses comes from?
      It comes from there customers.

      Who are their customers besides you and I (who get scewed at every opportunity by the banks) the banks cusuomers and companies and businesses.

      These companies and businesses get their money from you and I.

      So the bonuses one way or another are paid by you and I.

      We suffer to pay these greedy w@ankers crazy money.

      I a pity that the madman from Norway didn't run round the City with his guns and rid us of some of the parasites that work there.
      • paul
        paul 10 months ago
        This is as poor as a post gets. Jimfo shame on you at this time or are you going to make some joke of it? I bet you've got a "right good job" eh? For Jimfo read Beni.
      • paul
        paul 10 months ago
        This is as poor as a post gets. Jimfo shame on you at this time or are you going to make some joke of it? I bet you've got a "right good job" eh? For Jimfo read Beni.
    • DAVE LINGARD
      DAVE LINGARD  •  10 months ago
      When you are a banker you can't possibly live without bonuses. They are full of greed like all the big bonus boys. You'll never stop it, they have no scruples.
      What the country needs is for all prospective polititians, Judges, lawers, to do two years in the Army followed by two years living on a City council estate. That way they may, just may, begin to see how the other half lives and learn some disciplne. Then, when finally installed in their chosen career, they may, jusy may, be able to make informed and sensible decisions, decisions that the public want to hear.
    • Yahoo! Prints Lies
      Yahoo! Prints Lies  •  10 months ago
      why get bonuses at all, isnt salary enough?
    • G
      G  •  10 months ago
      Labour were the government in power that allowed the bankers to hive of the bonuses without doing a damned thing about it, such hypocrisy knows no bound s eh. Labour remeber were the party that could nothing without putting up the Council tax , or for that matter incfreasing the prescription charges within england and wales . that is also why Labour got the bloodied nose in Scotland for there gready antics that did not cut ice with the Scots . Labour could only manage to eventually claim that they would freeze the council tax in England after the scots had declared that there council tax would be frozen for a further 5years after the election. so for labour to call for bankers bonuses to be put in a pot for the youth unemployed is staggeringly an own goal when they would not stop the rot when in power.
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