Former health secretary tells ministers to fund more unemployment support for young people

Alan Milburn, author of a forthcoming government review on the youth unemployment crisis, has argued that unemployment support should be partially funded by reducing benefits payments.

Milburn, who was health secretary under Tony Blair, told The Guardian:“We need to redistribute money from the welfare system to more employment support if we are going to end the NEET crisis.”

This call comes around five months after Milburn published his interim report, with the shocking revelation that around one million young people are ‘NEETs’ (not in education, employment, or training).

Of the 257,000 on the health-related unemployment pathway, 82,000 receive an average of 1-2 minutes of work coach time per week, and the other 175,000 receive none at all.

While the final report has been pushed back until after John Healey’s first budget, Milburn has been doing a number of media interviews in a move described by The Guardian as “preparing the ground” for a potentially massive and controversial upheaval that critics have suggested could increase poverty and hardship.

Speculation is rife as to what form these potential cuts might take, but nothing has been confirmed as of yet.

John Healey and Andy Burnham have made also made comments about providing employment support rather than benefits for young people, suggesting Milburn’s recommendations are not out of step with the current party line.

Milburn notably argues that those with severe disabilities should be exempt from any potential cuts, and that they should not have to repeatedly prove their inability to work.

He told The Rest Is Politics that the “primary purpose” of his suggested changes is not to improve fiscal outcomes for the country but to improve life outcomes for young people.

Milburn also noted in his report that, despite thousands leaving the system and finding work every month, those on the ‘Health Journey’ received little to no employment support.

Of the 257,000 on the health-related unemployment pathway, 82,000 receive an average of 1-2 minutes of work coach time per week, and the other 175,000 receive none at all.

This is reflected by the £25 to £1 ratio between spending on benefits and unemployment support, which Milburn has suggested needs to be rebalanced.

However, this framing ignores that hundreds of thousands of NEETs are “hidden” to the system, meaning they do not receive benefits or unemployment support at all.

While ‘redistribution’ and ‘rebalancing’ may suggest similar spend per capita, if the unemployment reforms are to reach all or most NEETs, which Milburn suggests they should, this means 50-100% more young people would need to be accommodated on the same budget.