MILLIONS of out-of-work Brits are a “horrible, painful toll” on the public purse and are “dragging” down the economy, a top Starmer ally declared last night.
Shadow Cabinet Minister Peter Kyle said: “There are 2.5million people that are just unknown to the economy for reasons that we don’t understand, and there’s no exercise to go find them.
Simon JonesShadow science secretary Peter Kyle at the Labour Party conference[/caption]
Simon JonesPeter Kyle speaks to The Sun’s Harry Cole and Jack Elsom at the Labour conference[/caption]
“There are 700,000 young people who are not in education, training or work. And that figure has been growing, not diminishing.”
The shadow science and tech secretary hit out: “All of these things are personal tragedies, but they’re also taking a horrible, painful toll on our economy.
“It is dragging our economy down. So we need to get cracking on it.”
The tough talk came on first day of the Labour Party conference, with Mr Kyle suggesting they should instead be put to work in tech and green energy jobs.
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“These are amazing jobs” he added: “These are not jobs that are distant.”
The Shadow Cabinet rising star, who is a close ally of Starmer, vowed to unleash “Britain’s boffins”, revealing plans to shed “a maze” of red tape he claims is strangling the tech sector.
Labour will pledge to scrap “unnecessary layers of checks” which hold up government cash going to cutting-edge developments.
And he blasted delays of months and years for scientists to receive funding – warning Britain is going to be left behind by superstates like China.
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He says “multiple unnecessary layers of checks from the government mean getting funding approval can take months longer compared to other countries.”
He told The Sun: “You know, right now, it is taking up to 18 months to get your funding answer.
“When I set up a business with my best mate, we went and saw the bank. We went to Barclays. We had an answer within 24 hours, you know an account, support and an overdraft facility to get.”
He added to get “extra investment” into Britain the Government must “slash the bureaucracy behind it.”
Instead Mr Kyle wants to create 10-year Research and Development budgets rather than one or three year funding schemes currently available.
Quizzed if Brexit could help Britain be more nimble in science and tech, Kyle insisted “absolutely”.
But the one time devout remainer, was quick to say we should work closely with Europe as “just the reality of the world we’re in”.
Asked about moving away from EU rules, he insisted: “We should have a very keen eye on standards for our key exporting markets. And we should make sure that we’re also always trying to be in the same ballpark or at least exceeding them.”
Simon JonesThe Sun speaks to Peter Kyle at the Labour Party conference in Liverpool[/caption] Published: [#item_custom_pubDate]
