Time for the ‘Tim Reaper’ to resign

It was an interesting start to the Unite Choose Youth rally at Westminster today; I can honestly say it was the first time I have ever followed a rap band onto a stage, but standing in front of a thousand young people and youth workers it was a day of firsts.
 
It was the first time many had been to a rally, and also the first time many have visited parliament.
 
It was certainly the first time – and maybe the last time – anyone danced outside the House of Commons in protest at the cuts to youth services; hundreds attended a silent disco to demonstrate against a government that is silencing our young people and slashing youth services.
 
But then this is the first time we have a government that is seeking to abandon its duty to our young. It is the first time we have a minister who wants local councils to become ‘commissioners’ to shop for bargain basement services and not caring who provides them.
 
It shows a dreadful vacuum at the centre of the coalition government, a government that has a youth-shaped hole right at its heart.
 
The government has tripled student fees, putting the right to education beyond the reach of so many. It’s priced young people out of their future, already the IFS has said university applications have dropped by 10%.
 
Learning is now once again linked to privilege. The government has scrapped the Educational Maintenance Allowance – the scheme that helped support people at school. It is pulling the funding rug from the services that not only support young people, but are often the only safety net: advice services, mental health support, leisure services, libraries, rural transport. The list goes on.
 
And this government has also created the highest ever youth unemployment figures. Almost one million young people wasting on the dole, with absolutely no alternative from a clueless coalition.
 
Since May last year youth services have come under sustained assault. In parts of the country vibrant services in Manchester, Norfolk, Suffolk, Warwickshire and even Tim Loughton’s own patch of West Sussex – have disappeared altogether. Many more are on their knees. It is no good Tim Loughton, the minister with his hands around the neck of your services, pointing at councils, young people are not fooled, they know the government is the terror of youth services.
 
If the government had a shred of decency it would stop trying to justify the decimation of a world-class, world-admired service. It would rip up its plans to let its pals in the private sector fill their boots, and it would understand that youth services need professionals to provide quality services. It is the duty of government to sustain them.
 
Today parliament thronged to the sound of young people demanding a halt to these mindless cuts. They will beat on David Cameron’s door until he listens saying they are worth more than the insulting 28p per young person per day councils struggle to find.
 
This room was filled with the leaders of tomorrow. It is the duty of the generations before them, including mine, to nurture our youth. It is our duty to hand over to you for your care, a better world. Unite, is determined to fight for a better future for you.
 
Many of the young people at the rally were not yet old enough to vote, but it was full of the leaders of tomorrow. And as they lobbied their MPs they reminded them they will be voting in 2015, and when they do they will remember this moment and this government.
 
Tim Loughton’s job is to support young people, on the evidence so far he has failed in that job. His time is up, he should resign.

Len McCluskey is the General Secretary of Unite.