Robin Simmons

This paper focuses on the serial attempts of British government to solve the seemingly intractable problem of youth unemployment, a conundrum with which they have struggled, at least since the 1970s. It begins by locating a range of initiatives instigated by different administrations across four broad policy eras. The paper then focuses on New Labour’s approach to dealing with young people classified as NEET (not in education, employment or training) through critically examining a range of social-market initiatives implemented under New Labour’s New Deal for Young People, to which the Connexions service and its use of personal advisors were central. It goes on to compare and contrast this with the emerging approach of the present-day Labour government, which, we suggest, has some similarities albeit operating in significantly different economic circumstances. The central argument of the paper is that present-day Labour needs to move beyond the dominant supply-side initiatives of the past and avoid recreating ‘Connexions-lite’ by expanding on some of the modest, yet relatively successful, demand-side initiatives trialled under New Labour. This, we argue, is necessary if present-day Labour is to achieve its goal of economic growth whilst increasing the number of young people engaged in education and employment.

This paper is an invited response to an article in The New Statesman based on an interview with Joe Rollin from the Orgreave Truth and Justice Campaign (OTJC) (Lloyd, 2025). In that article, Rollin reflects on the announcement that a public inquiry will (finally) take place on the violent confrontation between striking miners and police at Orgreave coking plant in June 1984, the so-called Battle of Orgreave – an event which Rollin rightly describes as more of an ambush than a battle. On one hand, this is a significant victory for the OTJC, an organisation which has campaigned long and hard for a public inquiry, even if what happened at Orgreave – and why – is already quite clear. The New Statesman article then deals with the riots of summer 2024, which spread across much of England following the murder of three young girls by the British-Rwandan, Axel Rudakubana. Perhaps the worst of these incidents took place at the Holiday Inn Express, a hotel accommodating asylum seekers on the site of the former Manvers Main Colliery near Wath-upon-Dearne in South Yorkshire, where protestors attempted to storm and then burn down the building, and many who took part were arrested and subsequently jailed.

This paper uses Gramsci’s concept of interregnum alongside contemporary research on Britain’s former coalfields to critically consider the ‘condition’ of coalfield communities 40 years after the Great Strike of 1984–85 and the rapid demise of the coal industry thereafter. It focuses particularly on the former central coalfield, once home to Britain’s largest and most productive collieries, where mining remained a significant source of employment for longer than elsewhere. Whilst progress is varied and uneven, it is recognised that former coalmining communities have recovered to some extent from the debilitating effects of forced deindustrialisation. In Gramscian terms, a new hegemonic order has arisen to replace the old regime, but recuperation is, I argue, both precarious and partial. Rising levels of employment and educational attainment mask ‘morbid symptoms’ which continue to fester beneath the veneer of recuperation, in terms, for example, of low income, poor health, crime and other indices of deprivation. The relationship between education and work is, I suggest, played out in particularly problematic ways in the former coalfields where educational success is, in many cases, associated with outward migration and the loss of ‘talent’ set against the backdrop of local labour markets based largely on low-skill, insecure employment.

This paper deals with the historical experiences of women once employed in the British coal industry, a set of workers whose experiences are greatly under-researched and under-reported in both academic and policy literature on vocational education and training. Using the methods of oral history, it focuses on a particular set of women, all of whom undertook significant programmes of vocational education whilst employed at 'Carr House', a regional headquarters for the National Coal Board (NCB) in the north of England. On one hand, the data presented show their experiences were generally more positive in retrospect than as young workers attending college on a 'day-release' basis. But it also suggests that the women's experiences of vocational education provided them with a range of social and cultural benefits as well as career progression, both whilst working for the NCB and after leaving the coal industry. Whilst participants' words suggest that individual motivation and personal goals are important, the data also shows how learning is socially situated and developed via interdependent social relations in terms, for example, of connections with staff and students, via exposure to different forms of pedagogy, and through the provision of meaningful opportunities for career progression.

This paper critically examines New Labour's New Deal for Young People (NDYP) and its intended role in reducing the number of socially excluded young people classified as NEET (not in education, employment or training). It focuses on New Deal as an example of Third Way policy design aimed to address social exclusion, including the promotion of an 'evidence-based policy' which sought to impose the New Labour orthodoxy that any labour-market participation was preferable to none - and that this, in turn, would improve the life chances of NEET young people and combat social exclusion. The paper critically considers the policy design of NDYP, and its underlying assumptions, including the importance of global economic competition as justification for a range of education and employment initiatives expected to deliver improved social inclusion and a resulting improvement in socio-economic standards. Whilst New Deal was presented as a fresh, evidence-based approach to (re)engaging NEET young people in education and work, the central argument of this paper is that New Labour's focus on social exclusion at the expense of poverty meant that its approach can, in many ways, be regarded as a missed opportunity to enact meaningful change for those most in need.

This paper focuses on independent training providers (ITPs) - in other words, private companies - as suppliers of vocational education and training in post-war England. Whilst acknowledging the central role of further education (FE) colleges in delivering vocational learning, it draws attention to a large, diverse sector of ITPs operating alongside FE colleges, particularly during the 1960s and 1970s. Data suggest that around 15-20% of vocational learners were enrolled as fee-paying customers with private providers at that time - a figure broadly similar to today. There are, it is argued, three related reasons for this. First, the post-war policy environment, and the varied and uneven nature of colleges at that time, allowed significant room for ITPs to operate as alternative providers of vocational education. Second, the far-reaching 'efficiency' gains required since FE colleges left local authority control have largely attenuated the space in which ITPs previously operated. Third, neoliberal assumptions about the superiority of private enterprise mean that ITPs now receive significant funding from the state, largely to deliver Apprenticeships and other programmes of work-related learning - which has, somewhat perversely, reduced the incentive for them to act as bone fide commercial providers of a broader range of vocational learning.

This paper draws on an oral history project which focuses on former coalminers' experiences of education and training. It presents the stories of five participants, all of whom undertook significant programmes of post-compulsory education during or immediately after leaving the coal industry and achieved a degree of social mobility over the course of their working lives. The paper compares and contrasts their experiences with those which now exist in Britain's former coalmining communities which, it is argued, have been substantively attenuated over time, especially for young men. Whilst it is evident that individual choice and motivation can play an important role in helping (or hindering) young people's journeys through education and employment, the central argument of the paper is that individual labour market success lies at the intersection of structure and agency - although the data presented also demonstrate the extent to which opportunities available to young men in the former coalfields have been diminished by de-industrialisation.