Young people bore the brunt of the financial crisis, with almost a quarter (22.5%) unemployed in 2011. Since then the rate has fallen, and Thursday’s Labour Market statistics show 16% of 16-24 year olds are unemployed.

However the numbers of young people out of work is still significantly higher than the 6% rate for the working population as a whole.

I’m Steve Reed, and I’m Labour’s candidate for Croydon North. I was first elected in a by-election on 29 November 2012 following the tragic death of Malcolm Wicks who served with great distinction as our MP for 20 years and I’m standing again for re-election on 7th May 2015. I campaign on the issues that people in Croydon North say matter the most to them.

Jobs

With unemployment still unacceptably high, and far higher youth unemployment than neighbouring areas, we need more action to get people back to work. 

Make sure everyone is voting this year to make a change to your area…

• Conservative 34%
• Labour 34%
• UKIP 13%
• Liberal Democrats 8%
• Green 5%
• Others 6%

The paper reports Mr Osborne could use his Budget speech to project a £16bn increase in public spending, promise £7.5bn in tax cuts and still hope to run a budget surplus in the last year of the next parliament. Other spending giveaways could be an increase from £5,000 to £8,000 a year in the amount in small cash donations on which charities can claim a gift aid top-up and loans of up to £25,000 for PhD students in an attempt to convince people to take up postgraduate research

A report from the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) says HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) underestimates the number of tax reliefs and does not properly count their cost. The taxman does not check sufficiently to see if the reliefs are being abused, the MPs add. The PAC said that HMRC does not know how many reliefs exist or their cost. The huge burden of tax reliefs on the public purse is an issue that receives relatively little attention. These are exemptions from tax law that are either designed to make the tax system fairer, such as the income tax personal allowance, or which are intended to change people’s behaviour, such as tax reliefs for pension contributions, the newly announced personal savings allowance, or the various reliefs to encourage business investment.