Former Health Secretary Alan Milburn will this week unveil his long-awaited report into tackling Britain’s ‘Neets’ crisis – a moment Andy Burnham has branded a ‘watershed’
A former Health Secretary heading a major review into Britain’s ‘Neets’ crisis has said it is fantasy to suggest it can be solved in two or three years.
Alan Milburn warned there is no “magic wand” to tackle the enormous number of 18-to-24 year olds who are not in employment, education or training (Neet). Mr Milburn, whose long-awaited report will be released this week, said that under his proposals the government will have a duty to provide opportunities – while young people must take them or face sanctions.
He also said young people will “of course” lose out on benefits if his proposals are implemented. Mr Milburn told the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg: “This is a 10-year plan, and you’ve just got to be candid with people about this. Everybody thinks ‘wave the magic wand, snap your fingers, and you can do it in two or three years’. I’m telling you, you can’t.”
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Under his proposals, he revealed, there will be an “opportunity guarantee” – with safeguards to prevent young people suing the government if they do not feel this has been delivered. He said: “We’re calling it the opportunity guarantee, so there should be a guarantee for a young person because at the moment the only guarantee they’ve got is to a very simple thing, to get a benefit.”
He added: “So, in the end, in every welfare system in the world, there’s always a backstop, there’s always a sanction. And my view is very straightforward on this, most young people want to work. If you’re giving them more opportunities, if you’re giving them more support, which we should, then their obligation is to take up those opportunities. And if they don’t, what isn’t tolerable either for them or for the taxpayer is that they should be living a life on benefit, that’s got to change.”
Other proposals include moving some young people off some health-related benefits and onto a new “youth allowance” paid at the standard rate of Universal Credit. It comes as alarming figures revealed there are nearly one million ‘Neets’ in the UK.
Work and Pensions Secretary Pat McFadden said a complete reset of the benefits system will be needed. He vowed any measures put forward will be a “different proposition” to the ill-fated plans torpedoed by backbenchers when Keir Starmer was PM.
The Cabinet minister said: “There will be people in the future who will not get what they would get today. When people come up for reassessment, they go on to a new system but, as I say, people are reassessed today under the current system.”
But he refused to say how much he wants to slash from the welfare bill by the next general election, stating: “Look, I can’t say that – we uprate benefits every year, and I think it’s important to keep people up with the cost of living. These are some of the poorest people in the country, and the best way to get the benefits bill down is with the long-term reset that we are talking about.”
Andy Burnham has called Mr Milburn’s politically sensitive report – commissioned under Mr Starmer – a “watershed” moment – but stopped short of promising to accept its recommendations in full.
Mr McFadden told Sky News: “It’s a different proposition from last year, and I hope that Parliament views it in that light. We need a complete reset of the system in terms of what it offers young people to get these numbers.”