Minister's appeal on county visit

Ed Balls, accompanied by Telford MP David Wright, meets school council members at The Sutherland Business and Enterprise College in Trench. Picture by Bob Greaves.

Schools Secretary Ed Balls has promised direct action by the Government to help ease the toll of unemployment on Britain.

Speaking exclusively to the Shropshire Star, he said he fully understood the huge human impact of the 1,000-plus job losses recorded in the newspaper's circulation area since October.

Mr Balls, who was Gordon Brown's economic adviser before he became an MP, was attending a conference in Telford yesterday.

He said: "We are going through a global recession which started because of financial sector problems and it's affecting everybody.

"We think we are better placed to get through this more quickly than in the past.

"What we don't want to see are people's lives blighted year after year – or to return to the 1980s when young people's first experience of adult life was years of unemployment.

"Direct action is vitally needed, rather than sitting back and doing nothing."

Mr Balls said public and private sectors should work in partnership on issues such as protecting apprenticeships, helping householders facing repossession and using rapid response teams to assist people to get back into work.

Mr Balls, who had earlier addressed the 2009 Sports Colleges Conference at Telford International Centre, also urged David Cameron, Conservative leader, to "wake up" to the reality of the financial crisis and back the Government's approach to tackling it.

He said the country needed a "cross-party consensus" to help it get through the economic downturn, which he described as "the worst global financial crisis we have seen in our lifetimes in at least 100 years".

He said: "My message to Mr Cameron is 'wake up to what's happening in the world'.

"Do you understand the reality of this crisis? Back our action."

Mr Balls used the conference to announce £21 million of funding to improve facilities at 75 sports colleges, hailing them a runaway success in improving the health of the nation's youngsters while also showing the highest improvement rate in GCSE exams.

He also launched a contest to boost cricket in schools, challenging pupils to come up with the most innovative ways of encouraging the game and using it to raise standards across the school curriculum.

The two schools with the best ideas will each receive a set of 15 tickets for one of the ICC World Twenty20 matches at Lord's.

By Peter Johnson