Jobs figures demand action

Yorkshire is one of the hardest-hit regions – up 51,000 to a rate of 10.3 per cent – bringing in to question David Cameron’s pledge to narrow the North-South divide and raising fears South Yorkshire could sink back into the difficulties it experienced during the 1980s.

More than 50,000 people aged 16 - 24 in Yorkshire are now claiming Jobseekers Allowance and yet the response of Ministers was instinctively to point their fingers across the Channel.

Clearly the eurozone will have an impact, as will other global issues, on the British economy, but the Government appears to be implying it is impotent to effect any change.

Interestingly, few outside of the Coalition have cited the impact of the turmoil in Greece, Italy and Spain as the key issue. Perhaps that is because many countries that are outside of the eurozone, such as Sweden, Poland, Denmark and the Czech Republic, are showing considerably stronger growth than Britain.

David Cameron’s favourite put down to Ed Miliband at Prime Minister’s Questions is normally the wrecked economy he inherited, but with unemployment nationally hitting a 17-year high, business leaders are becoming increasingly frustrated with the lack of solutions coming from Downing Street.

Mr Cameron’s efforts so far, such as the Regional Growth Fund, are proving too slow. Every day that passes without a decision on a funding bid, the dole queues get longer.

Many warned that, particularly in the North, the private sector would not be in a position to absorb the job cuts in the public sector, and with hundreds of millions of pounds still to be cut from council budgets across Yorkshire there is little cause for optimism.

The heads of the FSB and the CBI have called for steps to be taken immediately – such as a cut to National Insurance contributions for those aged 16 - 24 – and Ministers promise there will be extra measures to stimulate growth in the Chancellor’s Autumn Statement in less than a fortnight.

He must not disappoint if he is to stave off the threat of a second recession.