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Unemployment in the North East is now the highest in the UK.

It was the kind of leap up the league table the North East didn't want.

has once again given it the highest rate of joblessness in the UK.

For a while the region had shed that dubious title, but this week the North East leapfrogged the West Midlands to reclaim it.

More than one in 10 people in the North East (10.2%) were unemployed by the end of 2010.

That's 129,000 people - up 13,000 on the previous quarter.

- up to 25,800 in January. That is one in five 18-24-year-olds.

In South Tyneside, Middlesbrough and Darlington that figure rises to around one in three.

There are real fears then of a "lost generation" - a group of young people who spend so long atrophying on the dole queue that they become unemployable.

So what's to be done?

We know the Government is placing its faith in the private sector to rebalance the economy and create the jobs the North East needs.

And nobody disagrees that it will be the private and not public sector that offers the best hope.

But this week in the Commons there was a dispute about how to achieve that.

The North East's former regional minister called a .

He and other Labour MPs focused their fire on the decision to abolish the development agency , and dismantle regional structures.

Nick Brown says the Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPS) being set up in their place are too small and too under-resourced to provide an adequate replacement.

He claims North East businesses are now struggling to understand who to deal with in Government.

Newcastle East MP Nick Brown says the Government has made a mistake by abolishing One North East.

: "Engagement with the private sector in the region by Government is now very weak. This is part of a national problem. Even very large private sector businesses are finding it difficult to know where and how to speak to Government."

And the Newcastle East MP also warned of the danger of a brain drain of economic development professionals.

He said the new LEPs were not taking on ex-One North East staff, and that many of the 320 employees and their expertise could be lost to the region at a time when it needed them most.

The Government though begs to differ. said the state of the public finances meant the Government could no longer afford to fund regional development agencies and offices.

But he said a combination of the LEPs, the regional growth fund, and tax incentives would provide the means for the private sector to flourish in the North East.

The Conservative MP for Stockton South, , also backed the Tees as the best way of boosting the local economy.

He also said that a survey of local newspaper reports showed that 20,800 new private sector jobs have been created in the region since August.

And the Politics Show is giving Mr Wharton another chance to talk about the best ways of tackling unemployment.

We are bringing him face-to-face with three young unemployed people - a jobless graduate and two people who have scarcely worked since leaving school.

Can he offer them any hope? What do they want to say to him?

Find out in the Politics Show at 12pm on 20 Februrary.

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