Alan Milburn, chair of the young people and work review, has warned the UK is in danger of having a 'lost generation' as he called for the benefits bill to be reduced. Speaking to Times Radio at the Labour Party Conference, he said one in seven young people aged 16 to 24 are not in education, employment, and training (NEET).
Critics have pointed to a massive increase in young people claiming benefits such as Personal Independence Payments (PIP) for conditions including ADHD and anxiety. The number of young people receiving PIP has risen rapidly since the coronavirus pandemic. There are now over 430,000 PIP claimants aged 16 to 24 in England and Wales, while annual spending on PIP for this age group has increased from £1.3 billion in 2019-20 to £3.2 billion in 2024-25.
Benefit bill must come down
Mr Milburn said: “We’ve got to get the benefit bill down. There is absolutely no doubt about that. And the only way of doing that sustainably in my view is not by setting an arbitrary target and plucking a figure out of thin air and saying we’re going to cut tens of billions of pounds. The answer is to say how do we get these young people into work so that they’re paying their taxes rather than claiming benefits. That’s the sustainable way of doing it.
“I think that’s entirely possible. One of the things that I’ve learned during the course of this last nine months as we’ve been doing this review is look, there’s no shortage of effort and no shortage of ambition on the part of young people. It’s not a shortage of effort that’s the problem. It’s a shortage of opportunity and it’s a shortage of support. Right now, the government is spending £25 on income support. For for every £25 of money that we’re spending on income support, we’re spending a pound on employment support.
“Even though 84% of these young people who are neat say they want to be in work and training. Come on, guys. We’ve got to spend money in the right way, which is to make sure that if you want to work, you get the opportunity to work.”
PIP rules and spending
Unlike universal credit, PIP is neither means tested nor conditional on being out of work; claimants can receive it while working and regardless of their income or savings. In 2026-27, awards range from £30.30 per week for the standard mobility component to a maximum of £194.6 per week for those receiving the enhanced rates of both mobility and daily living.
Mr Milburn said: “We got to make this a moment in time. You know, we’ve got to this is a huge problem. It’s been a problem for a very long time. The neat rate has barely been below 10% in about 25 years. Successive governments candidly have sort of ignored it rather than dealt with it.
“One in seven young people now are not in education, employment, and training. 16 to 24 year olds. There’s a real risk of a lost generation. People in the country are worried about that. Rightly so. What I want the government to do is to make this a top priority for action and I believe it will be. Certainly all the conversations I’ve had with the prime minister have given me a sense of optimism that he wants to do this. He wants to make the big change. He wants to avoid the risk of a lost generation of young people.
“It’s not going to be easy because at the moment we don’t have a system and we don’t have a plan that is capable of dealing with it and that has got to involve Andy talks about the rewiring of the state and he’s right about that. We got to rewire it in every regard. so that it prioritizes work rather than welfare. And that’s got to be, I’m afraid, a big sweeping set of changes, not just in the welfare system, but in health, in education, and in the labour market.”
Disability and jobs guarantee
Former Cabinet minister Mr Milburn, who was commissioned by Sir Keir Starmer to carry out a review of the Neet problem, said earlier this year that 45% of jobless young people reported having a disability. In 2013/14, that figures stood at just 21.1%. The jobs guarantee scheme aims to help 90,000 more young people into work by the next election, while the Government is also aiming to tackle a disability employment gap that means disabled people are less likely to be in work than others.
