Badenoch Would Bar Most Jobless Under-25s From Universal Credit
Eighteen to 24-year-olds who have not previously worked six continuous months would be moved off universal credit and onto a conditional “Get to Work Allowance”, requiring daily job centre attendance, training or community work. Those still out of work after six months would drop to 70% of the standard allowance, paid onto a card that blocks spending on alcohol, cigarettes and gambling. No costing has been published.
The exemptions matter as much as the rule: people with health conditions or caring responsibilities, those who have worked before, and young people without parental support including the estranged would all sit outside it. The Conservative leader’s case is about fairness to workers — “It’s unfair to the people who get up and go to work, having others earn more than them for not working” — and about who moves first: “no one wants to be the one to get off the treadmill first. We need to force that.” The shadow work and pensions secretary Helen Whately called it “tough love”, arguing too many young people leave school and sign “straight onto benefits”. What lifts this above conference positioning is that both parties are converging on conditionality: Alan Milburn’s government-commissioned review of young people out of work, due before the Budget, is expected to recommend more conditions too. Some 981,000 people aged 16 to 24 were not in education, employment or training between April and June. Watch her conference speech this weekend.