By Carla Denyer MP

This week, new ONS figures revealed UK unemployment has risen to 5% - the highest since the pandemic.

These numbers underline what people up and down the country see and feel every day: our economy just isn’t working.

Government ministers like Pat McFadden are right to highlight the problem that large numbers of young people are out of training, education or work. But they’re absolutely wrong to stubbornly bet all their cards on private sector growth to solve our unemployment crisis.

This is the same economic approach - government stepping back and turning our economy over to private companies - that has filled our rivers with sewage, hollowed out high streets, and seen wealth and jobs drain away from communities.

It hasn’t worked for the last 40 years - and it won’t work today.

We need new and bold solutions. Solutions like a National Nature Service: a government-created ‘nature and climate corps’ that would create thousands of meaningful public-sector jobs for young people across the country who are struggling to find work.

At the same time, it would........

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