Young people should have legal guarantee of job or training, Milburn tells BBC

Young people should have a legal guarantee of a job, training or employment support, the author of a major review of youth unemployment has told the BBC.

Alan Milburn, the former Labour minister whose proposals on welfare and young people will be unveiled on Tuesday, said those who refuse to take up the help could lose their benefits.

In an interview to be broadcast on Sunday, Milburn called for a radical shift in government spending away from benefits for young people to measures that support them into work.

He claims the government spends 25 times as much on benefits for young people than it spends on supporting them into employment, and believes the ratio should shift to two to one.

That would mean significant cuts to benefit spending and significant extra taxpayers’ cash for training, education or other forms of support.

Milburn said “the pendulum’s swung far too far from the one to the other – £25 to one, and we can take everything to £2 to one”.

He added: “To do that, we’ve got to invest, less in benefits, so we’ve got to be paying out less in benefits.”

The former MP acknowledged that would mean some young people losing out on benefits, arguing the system should focus on helping people into work rather than keeping them dependent on welfare.

Milburn said the government is already spending £22bn a year supporting young people who are economically inactive, and that money needs to be spent differently.

He has already said that the under 25s should no longer be able to claim some health benefits – the personal independence payment and the health element of Universal Credit.

In his other major announcement, Milburn spoke of the proposal he calls an “opportunity guarantee” for young people.

This would put a legal duty on government to ensure young people have access to a route into employment.

He said: “It should be a guarantee for a young person. Because at the moment the only guarantee they’ve got is a very simple thing. To get a benefit. What sort of life is that?”

The “opportunity guarantee” might work similarly to the way that councils have a legal responsibility to offer homeless people accommodation or advice, or accommodate children in care.

Milburn argues previous employment schemes have been temporary, and says a permanent legal entitlement is needed to tackle the long-running problem of young people not in education, employment or training.

The government is expected broadly to welcome the proposals, which will be published in full on Tuesday, with a statement in Parliament and draft laws early next year.

Almost one million young people in the UK are not in employment, education or training – otherwise known as Neet – according to the latest data from the Office for National Statistics.

Prime Minister Andy Burnham has described Milburn’s forthcoming report as a “watershed moment,” but stopped short of committing to implementing its recommendations in full.

Burnham also insisted paying for the reforms would not mean “more money” but “spending differently” in government when pressed on the large upfront investment they are expected to require.

Asked whether he would accept the politically sensitive report in full, Burnham declined to provide that “blanket assurance”.

Speaking at the Welsh Labour conference on Saturday, Burnham said that the report addressed the “youth detachment” that has been on the rise since the pandemic.

“It can’t be right that we’ve stripped away support from young people as a society, as life is getting harder for them and growing up is getting more difficult,” he said.

The prime minister added that the government was also looking at a new vision for schooling that is “not focused solely on the university route” and which offers technical education alongside traditional academic learning.

Lord Blunkett, a former Labour home secretary, told the BBC that money from cutting benefits spending should be reassigned to supporting employment “at least in the immediate future”.

Speaking on Radio 4’s Today programme, he said reforms should focus on “transferring resource that currently goes into paying for failure, keeping youngsters at home, isolated, lonely, into actually putting the money in and the resource and the commitment in to making those jobs available”.

Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch has previously said the government should not be spending “lots of time” on employment schemes, which she said would ultimately fail.

Her party and Reform UK have argued for significant cuts to welfare, including to fund a boost to defence.

Reform economy spokesman Robert Jenrick said: “This review is pointless unless we get action from Burnham straight away.

“It cannot be right that this continues for another 10 years before the youth benefits bill comes down.”

Green Party leader Zack Polanski said it was “disappointing” the Milburn review had “come up with the same tired conclusions” on youth unemployment.

Polanski added: “Using benefit sanctions to force young people into low-paid, insecure work doesn’t solve the structural inequalities they face, and it deepens poverty.”

The Liberal Democrats want the government to introduce a 100-hour work experience guarantee and a careers coach for every young person.

They believe this would equip youngsters with the best possible skills before they leave school.

The TUC – the umbrella group for unions in the UK – welcomed Milburn’s proposal of a legal guarantee as a “game changer”, describing the country’s number of Neets as a “national emergency”.

But it stressed that funding for additional support for young people should not come from public service budgets. “In further education, funding needs to be targeted at the workforce, as well as provision, to tackle the recruitment and retention crisis and massive pay disparities in the sector,” it said.

“A zero sum approach would be wrong and counter-productive.”

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