Andy Burnham has stated that the government is pursuing what he describes as quite radical change in how young people are supported across the country. The minister indicated that these reforms may include stricter regulations regarding benefits alongside significantly enhanced assistance for job seeking and mental health services.
These remarks were made in media interviews ahead of the release of the second report by former minister Alan Milburn. Milburn’s review focuses on reducing the number of young people who are not in work, education, or training. Burnham described his overarching mission as rethinking childhood starting from the earliest years of a child’s life.
The Milburn review, which is scheduled for publication this month, will advocate for ambitious initiatives to help young people secure employment and training. It is also expected to recommend measures that limit access to certain benefits for individuals who refuse to engage with support services.
The first part of the review, published in May, outlined the scale of the issue by noting that approximately one in eight young people, totaling one million, were neither working nor in training. The report attributed this situation to several largely structural factors, including inequality, the nature of the modern labor market, and mental health challenges.
Speaking to Times Radio, Burnham emphasized the societal importance of the issue. He warned that leaving young people in their twenties without hope is a dangerous approach. He argued that people need a clear path forward and suggested that society has not done enough to support young people growing up in a world that is very different from the one experienced by previous generations.
Burnham clarified that the report is not a narrow consideration of just the benefits system. Instead, he described it as a root and branch review of childhood and how young people are supported on their way through life. He expressed a willingness to make difficult decisions, citing his inability to accept the idea of over one million young people in their twenties relying on benefits.
He noted that such a situation is not good for the young people themselves nor for anyone else. To illustrate the scale of the proposed shift, Burnham likened the reappraisal of young people’s opportunities to the proposal to change the triple-lock system of guaranteed pension increases while simultaneously introducing a new system for adult social care.
The minister stressed that the changes would begin in the early years of education. He pointed out that too many young people are not school-ready when they arrive at school and that the evidence shows many do not catch up later. If children are not ready to learn in reception class, that gap persists throughout the entire school system.
In a separate interview with the BBC, Burnham addressed the financial implications of these changes. He stated that he could not promise exactly when the overall benefits bill would start to decrease because there is an immediate need to invest. He explained that spending on support for young people will have to go up first, which may require reprioritizing some existing funds.
Despite the initial increase in spending, Burnham said the overall bill would decrease over time. When asked if this reduction would happen within the current parliament, he replied that the process must be done in a sustainable way. He added that if it could be achieved in this parliament, as soon as possible is the goal.
