Please sign the petition for the introduction of a minimum unit price for alcohol

For several months there has been high hopes that the government would introduce a minimum price per unit of alcohol. The Prime Minister is on record as saying he supports the introduction of a Minimum Unit Price (MUP). However, just before the budget, in the face of some powerful lobbying, the government pulled back from announcing a MUP. We were told that the matter would be addressed through the budget. It was, with a 1p reduction on duty for a pint of beer.

A petition has now be launched on the government’s website. The petition reads:

“We urge the Government to introduce a minimum unit price for alcohol and show the courage to tackle the devastation to families caused by alcoholism and the billions spent by the NHS every year treating disease caused by alcohol misuse.

“Recent major health reports show that Britain faces an enormous burden from alcohol. With death rates from liver disease rising by 65% over the past 20 years, the Government cannot afford to do nothing.

“The Government made a clear commitment to introduce a MUP for alcohol in its alcohol strategy published in March 2012. We urge the Government not to backtrack, and to put health and lives first by introducing MUP.”

Please sign the petition by clicking this link which will take you to the government website

http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/47073

Ill-considered statements about immigration and housing can play into the hands of racists

Last week the Prime Minister, David Cameron, announced plans to limit the availability of social housing for non-EU immigrants. We have been led to believe that local English-born citizens are being denied housing because immigrants are ‘jumping the housing waiting list’.

The reality, though, is much different. The Communities Secretary, Eric Pickles, has reported that just 9% of social lettings were to non-UK born households. Yet in 2011, 13% of the population of England were born overseas. That means immigrants are less likely to secure social housing than the rest of the population.

Most local authorities have local connection policies. It is very unlikely that those new to an area, including those from elsewhere in England, will get social housing. There are no figures showing the number of overseas-born households getting social housing within two years of arriving in England. But according to Inside Housing, anecdotal evidence from social landlords “suggests that the figure is close to zero”.

Yet in spite of the facts, there is a perception that “the indigenous community” is being squeezed out of housing by incomers. There are anecdotes about newly arrived households moving into social housing and, for some in the media, anecdote is more compelling that fact.

But there is some basis for these anecdotes: the illegal sub-letting properties, and the right to buy.

There are believed to be 160,000 social tenancies that are illegally sub-let. Those in most need can include newly arrived households who are exploited and required to pay rents well above those being paid by the social housing tenants to their landlords. It is understandable that neighbours, whose own family members might be on the waiting list, conclude that a newly arrived household have secured social housing when the reality is that they are being exploited, with no rights and paying the highest rents.

One in three properties sold through right to buy are now being let within the private rented sector, yielding rents far in excess of those previously paid to social landlords. (There are clear lessons to be learned here regarding the increasing housing benefit bill). Again neighbours might conclude that their family member has again been disadvantaged, believing that the flat next door has been let through the local authority to newly arrived landlords when it has, in fact, been transferred to the private rented sector.

The only beneficiaries of this situation are those who are exploiting housing need (including those illegally sub-letting social housing) and the far right who seek to ferment racial discord, often in areas with a mix of high cost housing, housing shortage, and large immigrant communities.

I think politicians should be very cautious before they make pronouncements that are not based on facts on an incredibly emotive subject.

Reflecting on the ‘C’ word, and mentioning Graham Cox and Germaine Greer in the same breath!

Yesterday morning I posted a blog about the minimum pricing of alcohol in response to reports that the government might not proceed with this policy, a policy I think David Cameron was right to pursue. I tweeted a link to the blog and that is when the ‘fun’ started.

A former parliamentary candidate for a minor political party tweeted an extraordinary response: “Stuff your minimum pricing up your arse – socialist c*nt”. People seemed to like my response: “I’m overwhelmed by thoughtfulness of your argument”.

I can’t say my response was original nor as cutting as that of Stella Creasy MP who, when subjected to vile sexist abuse on Twitter, responded with this devastating riposte: “Your mother must be so proud of you”.

I was surprised by Mr P’s response to my blog, and confused by his subsequent bizarre question to me: “How many NHS patients have you killed?”. (For the record, and for the avoidance of any doubt, none!).

Suggesting that one “stuff your minimum pricing” where the sun don’t shine was not the most constructive intervention, unlike the much more thoughtful and challenging arguments set out by Cllr. Graham Cox on his blog.

Today’s post looks at the phrase “socialist c*nt”.  As for being a socialist, some know about my political background, but others might debate whether I have become a poacher turned gamekeeper. I don’t regard socialist as a dirty word although some use it as a sloppy denunciation of a general political outlook, in the same way as the shock jocks in the USA use the phrase ‘liberal’.

It is the use of the C-word that causes particular offence to many people. I am angered and saddened that this insult is used so freely in social media.

According to Wikipedia, it is “a word for the female genitalia, particularly the vulva, and is widely considered to be vulgar….. Scholar Germaine Greer has said that “it is one of the few remaining words in the English language with a genuine power to shock.” (It) is also used as a derogatory epithet referring to people of either sex….. (It describes) “an unpleasant or stupid person” in the Compact Oxford English Dictionary, whereas Merriam-Webster has a usage of the term as “usually disparaging and obscene: woman”, noting that it is used in the U.S. as “an offensive way to refer to a woman”.”

I don’t expect the C-word to be used in BHT, either as an insult or in ‘jest’, EVER.

There is no equivalent for men or for male genitalia, nothing that carries the same viciousness. Words like ‘knob’ and ‘dick head’ are laced with humour.

We have moved on as a society and today it is less likely that people will use the grossly offensive and racist N-word to describe black people, and similarly language has evolved to respect rather than insult gay men and lesbian women.

I have thought about how I should have responded. I tried humour, perhaps not very well and perhaps not appropriately. I did condemn his grossly offensive and sexist language, as did others.  Mr P’s language attracted wide condemnation which is encouraging.

I finish with reference to a response, on a par with that of Stella Creasy, by Gina Harrison, now sadly dead.  She lived in Norfolk Square.  She always defended the right of street drinkers to drink in the old tram shelters (now sadly demolished) because there was no where else for them to go, but she never gave them money.  One day when she refused to give a drinker any money, he called after her: “You old whore”.  Gina, then well into her eighties, slowly walked up to him and said: “Less of the old, if you don’t mind.” Now that’s style.

Bullingdon Club Bullies dehumanise homeless man by burning £50 in front of him

This afternoon I was writing a no doubt worthy item for this blog on BHT’s preparation for the digital inclusion challenges relating to the introduction of Universal Credit when I saw the tweets by Aideen Jones, the Chief Executive of Southdown Housing Association, regarding members of the Bullingdon Club who allegedly burnt a £50 note in front of someone begging on the streets of Oxford. (26/02/13: Please note I have removed a link to the original article on another blog which has itself been removed).

Aideen is right to point out that £50 could have bought 40 pairs of thermal socks for homeless people.

Of course people will make a connection between this obscene flaunting of wealth by a group of rich boys. The Prime Minister, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and the Mayor of London, all were members of the Bullingdon Club during their misspent youth, but I imagine Messrs Cameron, Osborne and Johnson will today share the outrage felt by most reasonably minded individuals over this incident.

The thing that upsets me most about this incident is what it says about how homeless men and women are dehumanised by society. If the allegation is true, these Bullingdon Bullies are merely an extreme example, and are the rightful targets for the contempt of decent people. But this dehumanisation goes much wider, from the groups of lads who think it is funny to give someone sleeping rough a kicking on a Saturday night, or a drunken reveller relieving himself on someone sleeping in a doorway, or the security guard who pours a bucket of cold water over someone sleeping in a car park.

More extreme examples lead to the violent death of homeless people through assault or setting fire to a sleeping bag when the individual is asleep in it. Dropping a paving slab on the head of someone asleep on the beach or in a park is likely to do serious damage.

Yet this happens. What we need to do is to put an end to homelessness. A grand objective, but one that should be seen as historically important as the abolition of slavery or the ending of apartheid. This week, Homeless Link will be launching a manifesto aimed at seeing the end of homelessness in the UK by 2023. My colleague, Nikki Homewood, will be at the launch of this manifesto in the House of Commons on Tuesday.

But individually we can do something. In response to Aideen’s tweet, I will buy £50 of thermal underwear for homeless men and women who use First Base Day Centre. You, too, can help, either by buying something from Amazon using the First Base wish list on this link or for those of you who don’t wish to use Amazon, donations can be made direct to First Base through our Just Giving page.

But there is one other thing we can do. We can stop using the term ‘the homeless’, a phrase that dehumanises people. They are men and women, they are someone’s son or daughter, husband or wide, brother or sister, father or mother. They have names. They have hopes and aspirations, feelings and fears. I always try to refer to “homeless men and women”.

In South Africa, where I grew up under apartheid, the white rulers referred to “the blacks” who had second class status, and whose lives were valued less than those of white people. The murder of a black man and woman rarely attracted media attention, more rarely warranted a police enquiry. In the white community, black people had become dehumanised. Hopefully in Britain in 2013 we won’t allow the same to happen to homeless men and women.

Twitter, who I am following, emails, and some shameless self-promotion

Do you, like me, sometimes pretend to know what people are saying when in fact you don’t?  I find this happens often on social media which can be fast moving and I find myself running just to stand still.

I don’t really get LinkedIn, I keep up with my daughter and nieces (I have no nephews) through Facebook, and feel out of my depth with most other social media. But I love Twitter. Some people liken Twitter to another email inbox. It is nothing like that. While emails demand and consume, Twitter feeds and inspires. While emails are a burden, Twitter is an inspiration.

I used to read two or three newspapers a day, now the only daily I read is the wonderful Brighton Argus. People criticise the Argus, but we would sorely miss it if it was not there. The cause for turning my back on daly papers is Twitter. I get far more information through Twitter, access to good writing, and most of all, I am entertained.

I follow too many people. It is said that it is possible to effectively follow a maximum of 150 people. I know I skim read my Twitter feed but there are those Brighton folk whose posts I always read including @Tony_Mernagh @huxley06 @robert_nemeth @ridgwaytim @brightonargus @BHcitynews @ChSuptBartlett @LisaSaysThis @ValeriePearce @RichDB_Brighton @IanChisnall @MelitaRadio @OurDaughtersUK @AMOQI @bonettpa @ArgusBizness and, in the interest of political balance, @chrishawtree @CoxGraham and @ThePennyDrops as well as my 45 or so @bht_sussex colleagues who are on Twitter. An absolute delight is @davemarthur who invariably makes me laugh or otherwise reminds me of my political roots. Apologies to those I have not mentioned – the list was getting rather long.

Being followed by famous people can be very flattering until you realise that three of the ‘big names’ who follow me follow thousands, even tens of thousands of people. I was thrilled when Desmond Tutu followed me. It wasn’t a fake account, it was actually the Tutu Foundation, sadly not the great man himself.

But back to my main point, not keeping up with the jargon. I have sympathy for David Cameron. I too thought LOL was “lots of love” although it is something I have never tweeted, and certainly never to Rebekah Brooks! I regularly RT but I hadn’t realised that I also MT. Apparently I have been MT-ing for months. I learned today that one should insert MT if you have modified a tweet, MT standing for ‘Modified Tweet’.

When I first joined Twitter I didn’t realise that to RT did not imply endorsement although, as was pointed out to me last year, a pattern of RT-ing can convey a message, such as the number of Tweets I re-Tweeted on the impact of welfare reform.

I had hoped that to MT was to offer some kind of endorsement, as in ‘meaningful tweet’. Alas, no. There are some tweets I would like to endorse. I would suggest ET but that acronym has already been taken.

I will continue to RT and try to remember to MT. When I do, it usually implies, but not always, endorsement from me, for what that is worth, which is probably not a lot! If you have yet to join Twitter, delay no more. A good starting place is to follow @AndyWinterBHT. How is that for a shameless bit of self-promotion!

Does size matter when it comes to Twitter?

@SallyBercow recently tweeted to her fifty thousand followers a link to a post of my blog. Those close to me will know how chuffed I was because in an hour or so I had more hits than I usually have in a month. The post was about the speech the Prime Minister made regarding the possible removal of housing benefit for those under 25.

It coincided with a workshop I ran on Twitter within BHT. We were looking at how BHT can increase its influence through Twitter. In preparation for this we began monitoring the number of followers the 20 or so BHT tweeters have.

Three of my colleagues saw a 50% increase in their followers over a 3 week period:

• @LizDaviesBHT had an 88% increase. Liz is really worth following as she tweets and retweets a range of really interesting things;
• @BowlerHelen had a 76% increase. Helen is an inspirational tutor in our Hastings Finding Futures Project and uses Twitter to celebrate the achievements of her learners, young men and women who many had written off;
• @BHTAdvice had a 52% increase. This account highlights what is happening in the advice world and anyone concerned about changes to welfare benefits and cuts to legal aid should follow this account.

But in preparing for the workshop I came to realise that size doesn’t matter when it comes to Twitter. It is the quality of the followers that counts. Christine Lagarde, the head of the International Monetary Fund, follows just 5 people. If you are an economist and you are followed by her, you will have been noticed at the highest level.

It can be very flattering to be followed by several hundred or even several thousand people. But if each of them, in turn, follow several thousand people, the chances are that you are not being followed at all. I can’t imagine that two of my ‘followers’ @SallyBercow (following 3,951 people) even notices my musings on @SussexCCC nor @campbellclaret (following 5,071 people) on my fascination with southern hemisphere rugby.

It has been said that it is possible to effectively follow a maximum of 150 people on Twitter. In this respect, size DOES matter. I know that I often just skim through my Twitter feed, focusing on just a minority of those on whose tweets I pause.

In considering whether you are being successful on Twitter, do the following simple exercise: decide who are the people you most want to be engaged with on Twitter. It might by 5, 50 or 500 people. Are they following you? If they are, great, if not you are probably not being effective on Twitter. A colleague of mine who deals with the media has a list of around 12, all journalists. She doesn’t need many more followers.

What is of equal important is that she is following anyone who has an interest in the work of @BHT_Sussex and the issues impacting on our clients. Most activity on Twitter, or blogs for that matter, is reading and reflecting. If you spend at least 95% of your time reading and reflecting, you may almost be getting the right balance.

Anyone who just uses Twitter to promote their own ‘fascinating’ version of the world will not attract, nor keep, followers.

Housing Benefit and Under 25’s

In a speech later today, the Prime Minister will say that he is considering removing housing benefit from those under-25s.  This appears to be one of the most ill-thought through, headline grabbing policy announcements that I can recall.

There are some questions that demand answers:

• How can parents be obliged to take their adult children back into the home, and what happens to those young people where they can’t ‘go home’?
• What protection will there be for children and young people who have left their family home to avoid abuse and domestic violence?
• What happens in those cases where the parents have “done the right thing” by moving to smaller houses once their children have move out and there is now no spare room?
• What happens if there is no room in the parent’s home for other reasons, such as second families with children?

I have to ask why David Cameron is bringing this proposal forward now?  We are already witnessing the most profound changes to the benefit system in my lifetime.  If this is such a pressing issue, why was it not identified and enacted when all the other changes were introduced?

The BBC’s political correspondent, Vicki Young, has suggested that Mr Cameron’s speech will be seen as an attempt to reconnect with disgruntled Tory backbenchers.  I don’t know if that is true, but if there is even a hint of reality in her analysis, it ill becomes a Prime Minister to risk a huge rise in youth homelessness for internal party expediency.

This isn’t the pressing problem it is being made out to be. Those under 35 living in the private rented sector are entitled to just £77 housing benefit per week. Just 6% of those under 25 living in the private rented sector currently receive housing benefit.

92% of new claims for housing benefit are from those in work.  They are already “doing the right thing” but this measure will hit young people already in jobs.

The consequence of this proposal will be an increase in overcrowding, homelessness, begging, crime, and prostitution.

The hopes and fears for the Comprehensive Spending Review

This week sees the announcement of the Comprehensive Spending Review, and I must admit that I await the detail with some trepidation.  BHT has long been aware that we, as a country, would be facing difficult times.  Indeed, at BHT we began preparing for this moment two years ago.  We examined our cost base, and made some very painful decisions regarding the salaries we pay.  We have made strenuous efforts to increase our income, and have made some bold steps in the direction of creating profitable social enterprises.

During this time, and in the months and years ahead, it is the ongoing support we receive from individuals, church and community groups that make the difference for many of our services.  As a result of your generosity and support, we are possibly better placed than many other charities to cope with even quite dramatic cuts.  We are determined to do what we can to safeguard the services we provide to vulnerable men and women. 

I take comfort from the pledge made by the Prime Minister in Downing Street shortly after the Coalition Government was formed.  David Cameron said: “I want to make sure that my government always looks after the elderly, the frail, the poorest in our country. We must take everyone through with us on some of the difficult decisions we have ahead.  Above all it will be a government that is built on some clear values. Values of freedom, values of fairness, and values of responsibility.”

BHT doesn’t provide any specific services to the elderly, but we do a lot with and for the frail and the poorest.  And the values of fairness and of responsibility run through our veins.

So, what do I hope and fear about Wednesday’s announcements?  I have three key issues I will be listening out for.

The first is housing benefit.  The changes in entitlement to housing benefit already announced remains a major cause for concern, but I hope that high rent areas like Brighton and Hove will receive some extra support to prevent the otherwise inevitable rise in homelessness.

Secondly, I hope that the value of fairness will ensure legal aid will still be there to prevent homelessness, tackle debt, and sort out welfare benefit problems.  This is specialist work and the social return on investment is enormous.  If these specialist services provided by the CAB, BHT and others are cut, we will see the consequences for many years to come.

Finally, I hope to see that the elderly, the frail and the poorest in our country will still be able to receive support through the very excellent services funded through the Supporting People programme.  This budget has already been significantly reduced in recent years.  There is little, if any more, to give.  I feel so strongly that the most vulnerable men and women in our society must continue to be supported to remain in their homes, to move to greater independence, and are supported into training, education and employment.

By Wednesday evening we will no longer have to speculate.

Reflections on 25 Years at BHT

I started working for BHT 25 years ago today. I hope you will forgive me for posting something more lengthy than usual: my reflections on BHT, what we are here to do, and the need to increase the pace and scale of change for the benefit of our clients.

BHT’s Mission (“combating homelessness, creating opportunities, promoting change”) doesn’t go back quite 25 years, but it continues to provide a neat summary of what we are about. Or does it? We have recently reviewed the Mission and what we mean by it, and fresh challenges have emerged, not least because of the economic and social policy changes we are facing.

In his speech in Downing Street, immediately after being asked to form a government, David Cameron said he aimed to “help build a more responsible society here in Britain… those who can should and those who can’t, we will always help. I want to make sure that my government always looks after the elderly, the frail, the poorest in our country”.

Since that speech, government ministers have emphasised the message that individuals ‘who can’ are expected to take responsibility for addressing their situation and for moving from dependency on benefits and into work. Measures are being put in place to put pressure on claimants to seek work. The change to housing benefit eligibility is an obvious and high profile measure that the government seems determined to implement in spite of wide-spread opposition.

There are some proposals which I, personally, welcome and endorse. The government is determination to tackle drug problems. Those with drug problems will have to engage in treatment or they will lose their benefit entitlement. I have some serious concerns about this, but not so the treatment model that Ministers are promoting. They have instructed the National Treatment Agency to “champion abstinence”, a 180 degree change from that of the previous government where stabilisation and harm minimisation was the objective. This is a policy change that I, personally, have advocated for more than a decade and one which I warmly welcome.

I believe that if we are to see lasting change for those with addictions, achieving abstinence is not the end goal, it is merely the starting point for a transition to normal living.

The services provided by BHT remain as relevant as ever, and the need is likely to increase. What each service seeks to achieve will need to be reviewed, partly in light of the changing social policy and financial environment, but mainly because regular reviews are the right thing to do.

BHT must retain and enhance its reputation of ‘doing difficult’, working with homeless men and women, including those with complex needs, and we must retain our ability to work with people where they are at. But we must also ensure that by emphasising the vulnerabilities and problems experienced by some of our clients, we do not ‘ghettoise’ all clients. Many of our clients are in housing need simply because of the lack of affordable housing. As my colleague John Holmström continually reminds me, we must put housing back into homelessness!

Combating Homelessness

BHT recognises that there is a genuine shortage of affordable and social housing and that alternate provision is required to meet housing needs of our clients through the private rented sector. Securing social housing for our core client group is becoming a less achievable outcome and will remain so, at least during the lifetime of this parliament. Councils are using new legal freedoms to give people with a job an advantage over unemployed people when it comes to gaining social housing. Already Manchester, Rochdale, Newcastle, Barnet, Uttlesford and Westminster (who between them manage almost 86,000 homes) are amongst those who plan to give people in work or training priority in the allocation of social housing.

BHT’s current policy is to campaign for greater provision of social housing. While we will continue to argue the case for public investment into bricks and mortar, in the current environment our clients are likely to be best served by increasing access to the private rented sector. In doing so we will need to be upfront and honest with our clients that social housing is not likely to provide a solution to their housing need. We need to ensure that they are focused on preparing themselves for housing in the private rented sector and all that that entails. If our clients are able to secure social housing, that will be a bonus.

Creating Opportunities

BHT creates opportunities and circumstances that will increase the potential for clients to be housed, undertake training and education, and secure employment since poverty is a major reason for homelessness and ill health. In the current environment, our clients will not thrive if they opt out of engaging in rehabilitation, training and employment opportunities. Our staff must ensure they motivate clients to actively engage with this approach, and they should spell out the consequences of ‘opting out’ in terms of housing opportunities and future welfare benefit entitlement.

We must ask if we trap people with their labels, get people identified by their problem. Do we inadvertently create ‘ghettos’ by reinforcing the problem by providing services that might suggest that mainstream services are for others? Do we have the right attitudes, culture and expertise to ensure that clients have ambitions, and that those ambitions are meaningful and achievable? And do we nurture hope and aspirations within our clients?

On the whole I think we are doing ok and in some areas very well, but there are some areas and individuals who may argue that clients have a right, for example, not to address their alcohol or drug problem, who will excuse a failure of a resident to pay rent, or who will focus on a ‘counselling approach’ at the expense of housing, training and employment solutions. I believe that should such attitudes or work practices exist, they need to change.

Promoting Change

‘Combating homelessness’ and ‘creating opportunities’ are fairly straightforward concepts. Not necessarily so with ‘promoting change’. Most, if not all, staff would support the concept of ‘change’, and BHT does some inspirational work in facilitating change for our clients, but we now need to go to the next level by being clear exactly what “promoting change” means. There may be a few who would qualify a commitment to change with “only if that is what the client wants” or “but clients have the right not to change”. What the client wants or does not want should not be the defining factor for us. We have a moral duty to work in the best interest of the client and clients as a whole. True advocacy requires the advocate to spell out what is best; it is not merely giving a voice to a client’s wishes regardless of how unachievable or non-sustainable such wishes are.

I believe that the pace and scale of change can and must be increased, firstly, because it is right for our clients and, secondly, because of the prevailing economic and social policy imperatives that have emerged following the 2010 general election. There should be an expectation that staff ‘drive’ change. The concept ‘promoting change’ is not passive. In doing so we must equip clients to manage their problems and to sustain progress made.

Whatever our views are of the approach of the Coalition Government, those “who can” who remain dependent on welfare benefits and state support will find fewer opportunities (accommodation, benefits, etc.) and a more ‘coercive’ approach from government. We must prepare our clients for this reality. There needs to be a sense of urgency about this agenda.

During the remainder of 2010/11, we need to review our approach to ‘change’, its scale and pace, and put in place new policies and approaches should they be required.

 There are a number of issues that will need to be explored further. For example: 

• How can we understand the difference between ‘can’t change’ and ‘won’t change’, and how we should continue to work with clients in each group? We don’t want to create new classes of excluded men and women.
• How should we position ourselves regarding choices and consequences? For example, with rents, should we only support move on if someone has no arrears, or no arrears for 3 or 6 months, etc.? This is a real client-centred approach where we treat them in the real world, not in some cotton-wool world.
• What can we expect, even demand, from clients when considering what is “for the greater good”?

How we do this must be left with individual services, but I am giving out a clear message that we need to increase the pace and scale of change. It is a message that should be welcomed by most, not least because the greater the change, and the sooner it happens, can only be good for our clients. BHT, its staff and supporters have a lot to be proud of, and we can be excited about the difference we will be making to the lives of our clients for the next 25 years.

We mustn’t remove the ladder for the young unemployed

News that 1.4 million adults have never had a job is shocking.  Some 600,000 16 to 24 year olds (that’s 1 in 12) have never worked despite not being in education or training.

The Chancellor, George Osborne, has told MPs that the existing system of benefits was “wasting the live of millions of people”.  The benefits system may well be keeping some people in welfare dependency, but I think the problem is more complex, and the solution equally so.

Welfare benefits are almost certainly going to be cut following the Comprehensive Spending Review.  Any cuts must ensure that the most vulnerable are not left destitute, and David Cameron has given a assurance that they will be protected.

I hope that the Chancellor will invest in job training, work experience and jobs otherwise those figures of 1.4 million will certainly increase, and those young people who yet to be employed may never be. 

If he, or any of his Ministers or Members of Parlament, would like to see a scheme for young people that prepares young people for employment and work, they should visit BHT’s Finding Futures project in Hastings. Often those joining the project are not yet on the ladder for personal development and enhancemnt; many don’t even know that the ladder exists.

Young people need hope that there hopes and drerams are achievable.  I hope that George Osborne will remember this.