Milburn Says Cut Benefits to Pay for Youth Employment Support
The author of the government’s review into young people out of work and education says ministers should move money out of welfare to fund employment support: “We’ve got to have a different conversation about the welfare system, it just isn’t working for young people.” A record one million 18 to 24-year-olds are now in that position, and 60% of them have never had a job.
That second figure is why he calls it detachment rather than unemployment, and why he frames it as a health problem: “the crisis is a health crisis.” It is also an intervention with a date on it. Alan Milburn’s final report has been pushed back by ministers until after the Budget on 28 October, so he is making the argument in a newspaper interview instead, ten days before a chancellor who is under pressure to explain how he closes a multibillion-pound gap without borrowing more. The chancellor announced a £100m local apprenticeship service at his party conference last month and called it “a downpayment on Alan Milburn’s work”. Mr Milburn also hinted at conditionality, saying “there has got to be an obligation on young people to take up those opportunities”, and wants a maximum waiting time for mental health services. Interviewed alongside him, the chair of the government’s review of mental health, attention deficit disorder and autism warned that without action the share of young people with a diagnosable disorder could rise from one in five to one in four.