UK needs ‘tough love’ approach to young people on benefits – Alan Milburn

Britain needs to treat young people on benefits with “tough love” as the current system has become “a total state failure”, Alan Milburn has said.

The former Labour minister, who is currently writing a review on youth unemployment, told The Times the state should provide greater employment support in exchange for a new “duty to engage”.

Those on health and disability benefits who are capable of working should be met with an “obligation” to use that support, he added in the interview published Saturday.

He also called for a “backstop” where their benefits would ultimately be reduced if people repeatedly fail to engage, “as a last resort” for those who are able to work.

Alan Milburn, Prime Minister Andy Burnham and Education Secretary Lucy Powell (Temilade Adelaja/PA)

PA Wire

This comes after the Education Secretary said she wants a revolution in the education system that would see children aged 14 and above to take vocational qualifications tailored to the economy in the area.

Lucy Powell told the same newspaper that she wants new “high quality, equal esteem” vocational qualifications to be desirable for middle-class families.

Mr Milburn told The Times: “There’s a deal. And the deal is that as the opportunities increase, so must the obligations because otherwise we will end up with a situation where more and more young people are consigned to a life on benefits.

“And young people have an obligation to engage with that. And I know that sounds like tough love. But tough love is what is needed here.”

Education Secretary Lucy Powell (Stefan Rousseau/PA)

PA Wire

The latest data, published in May, showed the number of young people aged 16-24 neither working nor learning surpassed one million for the first time since 2013, reaching 1.01 million in the three months from January to March.

An interim report by Mr Milburn, published the same month, warned the figure could rise to one in six by 2031 and that Britain risks leaving behind a “lost generation” of young people ill-prepared for work.

Mr Milburn said: “At the moment what we’re doing is basically saying to a near majority ‘oh it’s fine’.

“It’s the state at its worst. A total state failure.

“Obviously apart from those with severe and enduring disabilities all financial support for young people should have support attached to it to get into work and training and should have requirements attached to it.”

The proposed “backstop” of stopping benefits is used in other European countries including the Netherlands where the Neet rate is 4.8% versus the 13.6% in the UK, the newspaper reported.

Mr Milburn told The Times: “It’s not that young people are lazy or feckless or have lost resilience or are soft or snowflakes.

“It’s the complete reverse of that. They’re frustrated and they want to get on with their lives and they’re aspirational and creative.

“It’s not that they want to be on benefits.”

Meanwhile Ms Powell said reforming Ofsted will help ensure schools retain academic qualifications and that others offer their share of vocational courses.

On whether there is a risk of a divide between schools offering mainly academic or technical options based on their deprivation levels, Ms Powell said: “I’m absolutely determined that that doesn’t happen. There are lots of ways that we can look at measuring these things [including] Ofsted.

“I’m really clear this is not about a two-tier system; it’s about creating pathways that may, for some, arrive at similar destinations if you do the academic route, such as engineering.

“Where [such qualifications] have maybe struggled in the past is that there haven’t been clear standards. I want to see my kids doing high quality technical and vocational options, alongside their academic study.”

Teenagers have previously been deterred from vocational qualifications by the lack of hands-on, practical and physical experience in current GCSEs such as computer science, textiles and PE (physical education), she added.

New qualifications will be introduced gradually and some existing options will be repurposed or “boosted”.

Vocational applications could alter modern foreign language courses, which she said had “fallen off a cliff” at GCSE.

Children who have been to private school can be spotted “a mile off” because “they’re very confident and they’re good at speaking, at presenting themselves and they have self-belief”, she said.

“So why is it that [some people to the right of politics] don’t want that for all children? Why is it that they want a narrower and narrower offer?

“I want confident, happy kids who can present themselves and have the chance of doing sport, music, creative subjects and technical and vocational education. That’s what I want for my own children, as a pushy tiger mum, and I want that for all kids.”

“Huge strides” have been made in literacy, numeracy and core subjects, she said, “but too many are being left behind and failed by our education system.

“Life is changing faster than we can all comprehend, and so we really do have a duty to look forward, so that’s why I call it a revolution.”