As told to Will Barnish
Less than a decade ago, you could walk down the high street with a stack of CVs or a pen ready to fill in an application form, nip into a shop or pub, and come out with a job. Times have changed, and that's not how it works for young people anymore.
As a former youth worker, I know how important it is to have opportunities for young people, with good jobs in every postcode, proper youth support, and a place to go when they need help. Often, they're told to complete an online application that gets sifted by AI, and that's before they even get to the years of experience often required for a first job. So it matters more than ever that we put measures in place to support people starting out in their careers, or simply looking for a new one.
According to the Office for National Statistics, the number of young people not in education, employment or training (NEETs) grew by 89,000 between March 2025 and March 2026. That's not the case in Stafford, Eccleshall and the villages, where we continue to buck the trend, with NEET and wider unemployment rates below the national average. But I know that narrative has to change. Our young people have too much to offer, and even one young person trapped, unable to fulfil their potential, is one too many.
When the Government announced its Youth Guarantee Scheme in response to the growing number of NEETs, I knew straight away we needed to bring it to Stafford. The scheme guarantees jobs for 18 to 24 year olds and includes the rollout of Youth Hubs, supported by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP).
A Youth Hub will give our young people direct access to employment support, skills training and wider services to get them into work, all in one place. Joined-up support like this for 16 to 24 year olds will make a big difference.
Bringing this wraparound support to Stafford will benefit our young people and the wider community too. It'll boost the local economy, bring money to our high street, and support SMEs.
Youth Hubs get people through the door. What happens next though matters just as much, and that's where our colleges come in.
Staffordshire has so much to offer in terms of education. We have some incredible facilities here, and it's time we built on that. Anyone who knows me knows I never miss a chance to shout about the fact that we have the best college in the country, Stafford College. The college works relentlessly to bring opportunities to young people, from apprenticeship schemes to adult courses for those over 19. And a recent campaign I led saw them become one of just four Advanced Manufacturing Technical Excellence Colleges in England.
That means millions of pounds of investment into new facilities and equipment, helping local young people get into well-paid, skilled jobs. It also means we can work with local employers to pioneer a hand-in-glove model, giving them access to a talented workforce skilled up in the areas that will benefit them most.
Having an Advanced Manufacturing College in an area like Stafford is an opportunity most other towns simply don't have. We sit on the M6, with rail links to major cities in 30 minutes, ports and airports only a few hours away, and GE Vernova and other technical manufacturing companies right on our doorstep. Nowhere else in the country has that combination. Stafford could, and should, be the employment hub of the country.
The Advanced Manufacturing Technical Excellence College isn't the only exciting news the college has announced recently. It sits alongside the £1 million investment I secured for a high street Adult Skills Centre in Stafford, which will open up learning for mature learners, with flexible courses that can be studied online or in person.
With the college putting job opportunities like this within young people's reach, we now need affordable housing and investment in the high street, so people want to lay their foundations here.
I'm a firm believer that young people can achieve brilliant things if the right life chances are there for them. Securing this Youth Hub, the Advanced Manufacturing Technical Excellence College, and a new Adult Skills Centre isn't a set of one-off investments designed to grab headlines. It's the first steps in building a whole new youth and education ecosystem, one that gives our young people every reason to walk down that high street with confidence, and gives us the long-term skills to drive more investment into our area. I'm proud of what we've achieved so far, and there's more to come.
