Young People and Work: Milburn Interim Report

Andrew Ranger Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd November 2026 Westminster Hall

[Andrew Ranger (Wrexham) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the findings of the Milburn Review into young people and work: interim report, published on 28 May 2026.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms McVey. I thank the Backbench Business Committee for allowing me to bring this debate forward.

Each generation is judged on the question of whether we leave the next one better off. Will they have greater opportunity, more security and the same hope that we had? Around 1 million young people across the United Kingdom are NEETs: not in education, employment or training. That is one in eight. Of those, six in 10 have never had a job—and the interim Milburn review warns that, without action, that number will be one in six within five years. If we do not act with the magnitude, imagination and substance that this moment demands, we risk failing on that generational question.

How did we get here—or, to put it better, how did we allow our young people to end up in this position? The systems set up in the shadow of the second world war to support and enable a good life for everyone in this country regardless of postcode or wealth are at the very core of meeting the challenge, but we must ask whether they are working as they should. Why does our welfare system spend £25 on benefits for young people for every £1 it spends on helping them into work? Why are young people who could work with the right support being signed off and left there with no route back? Why do 67% of NEET young people tell us that the curriculum does not prepare them for work or life?

The stark reality is that the institutional infrastructure that accompanies the system has been hollowed out, without anything to take its place. That is the youth clubs and community spaces where young people learn to work together, build relationships and find their place in the world; or the Saturday jobs, where they develop vital soft skills, learn the value of responsibility and discover what it means to be part of a team.

[Mr Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)]

Supported internships are an incredibly useful way of supporting young people who have an education, health and care plan along the pathway to work. They cost more and require significant investment, but are very cheap in comparison to seeing that young person living a life on benefits. Does my hon. Friend agree that we should be doing all we can to provide more supported internships, because that investment will make a long-term difference to getting people out of unemployment and into work?

[Andrew Ranger]

Yes, I totally agree; I will come on to that point later in my speech.

Too often, politics runs on short-term decisions, whatever the party or the Government. On this issue, short-termism will not do. The young people affected will not accept it, and nor should we. Picture a young person in my constituency of Wrexham—let us call him James. He is talented, but school never worked for him. He moves on to further education, but it is the wrong fit and does not work out. Before long, he is signed off and written off.

This all comes back to a moral mission that touches every postcode. The problem cannot be solved by the state alone; it needs businesses, third sector organisations and community groups—every one of us. It takes a village to raise a child. This is going to take a nation.

Six years ago, we asked young people to carry an extraordinary burden to protect older and vulnerable people from a pandemic. They did it without question. They sacrificed experiences, milestones and opportunities that the rest of us took for granted. That sacrifice is not without its aftershocks, many of which we have seen come to prominence in the last few years, particularly in health and educational outcomes.

[Gill German (Clwyd North) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend for all his work in this area. I visited my local employability service, Working Denbighshire, last week. It runs an amazing programme called Barod, which means “ready” in Welsh. It does pre-employability work—working on confidence, social and communication skills and the things that really start young people on that pathway. Does my hon. Friend agree that we should be providing that sort of service to all our young people across the UK?

[Andrew Ranger]

I totally agree; that is another thing that I will come on to in my speech.

It is now our turn to repay the debt that we owe young people. Many players will help us to solve this crisis, and one of them is business, both local and national. I want to recognise the businesses already meeting the challenge. Examples from my own constituency include Moneypenny. At national level, Sainsbury’s and Greene King, among others, are giving 100,000 much-needed opportunities to young people. Those are vital, but I ask all businesses to give young people opportunities. They may not necessarily have the skills on paper—on their CVs—but they are undoubtedly talented and will repay the chance that they are given. Spend the extra time doing an in-person interview with an applicant, who will gain much more than they would have in talking to an AI chatbot. Look past the gaps in their CV and see the potential behind it.

[Anna Dixon (Shipley) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend for securing this debate. He will be aware that Milburn’s interim review found that 23% of young carers are not in employment, education or training and that 40% of those have spent more than 18 months out of employment, education or training, yet they have amazing resilience and experience to bring to a job. Does my hon. Friend agree that, in the review’s final report, we must outline a package of support for young carers and encourage businesses to take a chance on young carers and give them an opportunity?

[Andrew Ranger]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. That is a really good ask of the final review. We must look past the gaps in CVs and see the potential behind them; that faith will be repaid many times over.

Let me turn to the education sector. Milburn reported that two in three NEETs say that the curriculum did not prepare them for work. Careers education often arrives too late, at a time when decisions about the future are already being made. Research by Education and Employers shows that children’s ideas about what they can achieve are being formed by the age of seven and are already being narrowed by gender, background and whom they see around them. Careers education must start earlier than it does currently. By seven, every child should be meeting people from the world of work and seeing where their learning could take them—not to choose a career at that stage, but to open those doors before they are closed.

In the Netherlands, fewer than one in 20 young people is NEET. Work-based learning is built into vocational education. Employers and colleges plan placements together, through a national body that brings them to the same table. Work experience is not an add-on; it is part of the course.

To the third sector organisations doing remarkable work across the country, representatives of some of which join us in the Public Gallery today, I say thank you for all the work that you are doing. Keep going and be loud about it. You are our partners in this mission, and we have a great deal to learn from what you are achieving. In Wrexham, WeMindTheGap’s six-month programme is doing exactly this—getting young people back into work and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Clwyd North (Gill German) said, helping them to build soft skills: confidence and resilience.

I say to the Government that we must share the risk with employers. Support must not stop the day a young person starts work, because a job landed is not a job done. The mentoring and coaching that got them through the door must carry on through the first months, when too many placements fall apart. Let us work with those third sector organisations; let us support them, too, to deliver this. We need to strip away the paperwork. Too many employers who want to help are put off before they even begin. Every form that stands between a willing business and a young person is an opportunity lost.

Also, we need to open up the data. Information exists, but it is not joined up and no one is accountable for the whole of it. That is resulting in a hidden cohort of about 314,000 young people who are NEET, claiming no benefits and invisible to the very systems meant to help them. If we cannot see them, we cannot help them.

However, the answer cannot be designed entirely in Whitehall. Every place knows its own picture best. It knows which employers are hiring, which schools are struggling and which young people have dropped off the radar and why. In my constituency and many others, it will be the local authorities, the schools, the further education providers, the employers and organisations like WeMindTheGap that know the young people behind the numbers.

We need a whole-society approach to tackling this crisis. It takes more than all the individual elements acting alone. It requires families, communities, businesses, educators and public services working together, united by a shared responsibility to give every young person the opportunity to thrive—a system to mind the gaps. If we achieve the above, back in Wrexham James will be getting the support he deserves, on a work placement with a local business, backed by a mentor and a coach every step of the way, slowly but surely getting back on his feet.

Where do we want this generation to be in the next 10 or 20 years? Do we want NEET rates still to be rising because the big decisions, some not easy, were pushed down the track and never delivered, or do we want the phrase NEET to be a historical term—something that was, not something that is? Alan Milburn’s final report will be the moment of truth—not just for us in Parliament, but for businesses, third sector organisations, schools and colleges. It will ask whether we are willing to be partners in the great challenge of our time—one national moral mission; one team.

I thank all the wonderful organisations and individuals who have made this debate possible, and for everything they do to support young people across the country. I also thank Alan Milburn and his team, including Peter Hyman and Shuab Gamote, for their visit to Wrexham to meet our incredible young people as part of the wider work on this report. They have had a massive impact already, and the impact on the future of our country will be substantial. In Wrexham, 10 years from now, where is James? He is in secure, long-term work and is happy, having built a life that he is proud of and fulfilled by. That is all we should want for every young person.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

--- Later in debate ---

[Andrew Ranger]

I thank all hon. Members for coming today, for their valuable contributions and for sharing their experiences and the work going on in their areas. Doing that is vital, because we can all learn from one another and take this mission forward. I also thank my hon. Friend the Minister and the spokespeople from the other parties, the hon. Member for St Neots and Mid Cambridgeshire (Ian Sollom) and the hon. Member for Fylde (Mr Snowden), for their responses.

The number of people contributing today shows how important this issue is across the UK. We are at an important moment, because the publication of the final Milburn report is coming up. How we respond here is vital; it will define our country and our legacy here for many years into the future. It will need all of us to fix this issue, and I hope that we can work across the House and beyond to do that. It is clear, from everyone’s contributions here today, that we need a whole-system approach, covering transport, the economic approach, early intervention, local design and delivery, and so many other things that hon. Members have mentioned. Once again, I thank them all for contributing to today’s debate, and thank you, Ms McVey.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered the findings of the Milburn Review into Young people and work: interim report, published on 28 May 2026.

Oral Answers to Questions

Andrew Ranger Excerpts

Monday 12th October 2026 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Ranger (Wrexham) (Lab)]

19. What steps he is taking to help support the establishment of youth hubs.

[The Minister for Employment (Andrew Western)]

We are making strong progress expanding youth hubs across Great Britain, with delivery ahead of schedule, bringing the total number of youth hubs to 160. These hubs provide a single, community-based front door to joined-up employment, skills and wider support for young people. We continue to work closely with local authorities and partners to maintain momentum and support further expansion.

[Andrew Western]

I thank my hon. Friend for his invitation and for highlighting the work of the Falkirk youth hub and its partners. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has met with Powering Futures and is aware of the issues that he raises. My hon. Friend has been relentless in seeking support for this organisation, and I hope that the Scottish Government will think again and consider supporting the good work of Powering Futures with funding.

[Andrew Ranger]

For many of our young people, the hardest step towards obtaining work is the first one: walking into a jobcentre or youth hub and asking for support. Does the Minister agree that part of the approach of youth hubs, including the new hub in Wrexham, must be to reach those young people where they are, rather than waiting for them to come through the door?

[Andrew Western]

My hon. Friend is right. The whole purpose of youth hubs is to take support out of traditional settings and into communities, meeting young people where they are rather than expecting them to come to us. Through partnerships with local authorities, charities, colleges and other organisations, youth hubs such as the upcoming Wrexham youth hub will help us reach young people in their local communities who might otherwise miss out on support. We will continue to encourage all youth hubs to undertake proactive outreach and work with local partners to reach young people. I have seen excellent examples of that in the hubs I have visited thus far.

Milburn Review: Interim Report

Andrew Ranger Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd June 2026 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Western]

The sweeping range of this Government’s interventions means that we will deliver more than 500,000 opportunities for young people. The hon. Lady asked specifically about training for younger people. This Government have pivoted funding from older apprentices—level 7 and above—to younger ones, and introduced foundation apprenticeships so that we can better support people aged 16 to 24.

[Andrew Ranger (Wrexham) (Lab)]

I welcome the report, which dismisses the long-held stereotypes that young people are lazy or do not want to work. This situation is not a failure of young people; it is a failure of the system. In the survey, 84% of NEET young people said they want to find a job, education or training. Will my hon. Friend set out how the Government believe that we can move to a system that recognises that fact and adopts a participation approach, and how employers can play their part?

[Andrew Western]

My hon. Friend asks an important question and underpins it with an extremely important statement: this is not the fault of young people. They are not lazy. They have been let down for years by a system that does not serve their needs. The Government are putting in place £2.5 billion for the youth guarantee. We continue to work with employers and employment support providers to talk about how we can tailor support to the specific needs of young people to get the number of young people not in education, employment or training down.

Income Tax (Charge)

Andrew Ranger Excerpts

Monday 4th November 2024 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Ranger (Wrexham) (Lab)]

Diolch yn fawr, Madam Deputy Speaker. I am grateful for the opportunity to make my maiden speech during this important debate. It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Mid Buckinghamshire (Greg Smith), and also to follow the great maiden speeches from my hon. Friends the Members for Huddersfield (Harpreet Uppal) and for North Somerset (Sadik Al-Hassan).

I stand here humbled and privileged to be the Member for Wrexham, and to serve every single one of my constituents to the best of my ability—they deserve nothing less. The first Labour Budget for nearly 15 years is a major part of how this Government will put the interests of the people of Wrexham, Wales and the UK first. It is fixing the foundations of the economy and the public services that we all rely on; increasing pay for thousands of workers in Wrexham; making long-awaited improvements to workers’ rights; providing more support for carers and struggling families; addressing historical injustices such as the mineworkers’ pension scheme and the infected blood scandal; and ensuring the safety of coal tips in Wales.

During the election, I promised my constituents that I would fight for fairer funding for Wales. This Budget will deliver the largest settlement for Wales since the start of devolution, all alongside a programme of investment in our infrastructure and our workforce and to support businesses. As someone who has both run my own business and helped others to start up and run theirs, I know that most of all they want stability and the ability to plan ahead. As much as anyone else they rely on good infrastructure and public services alongside a skilled and productive workforce. This Budget is the start of ensuring that we deliver that. Indeed, on the same day as the Budget was announced, new investments were made in my local football club, which Members may have heard of, and in Wrexham Lager—dare I say the world’s best lager, and the UK’s oldest lager brewery.

Many will have seen and heard a lot about Wrexham in recent years, but I am sure there are those who want to know more. Wrexham is situated in the north-east of Wales, on the border with north-west England. Following the recent boundary changes, my constituency is much changed after it inherited most of the old Clwyd South constituency. Proud of our Welsh identity, which is core to the people of Wrexham, we also have strong links to the north-west of England, both socially and economically. Wrexham has a long history of coalmining, iron and steelmaking; those are the rocks on which the community was built, and which in many ways still influence it to this day. The communities that built up around those industries form a circle of villages around the city, with the rolling hills of the lower Dee valley to the east—dominated by farming and rural communities—and the wilder and more dramatic landscape of the foothills of the Clwydian mountain range to the west.

The coal and steel industries are long gone, but their importance to Wrexham is not forgotten. Great community organisations such as the Wrexham Miners Project ensure that the story of Wrexham’s past is kept alive and passed on to younger and future generations. Ninety years ago this year, one of the UK’s worst ever coalmining disasters happened in Wrexham, at Gresford in 1934, when 266 men lost their lives and only 11 of the bodies were recovered. This was a time when profits were put before people and workers’ rights and safety were a secondary consideration. Every year, the community comes together to remember those tragic events that shaped the lives of so many others.

Community is at the heart of Wrexham—it is its strength. So many people and organisations help others every day and take pride in the place where they live. There are so many to mention, from Wrexham Litter Pickers—a wonderful volunteer group who work hard to keep our streets tidy—to places such as Lle Hapus that bring people together, and so many others. Wrexham has welcomed people from around the world who have chosen to come and live there. We have a strong Polish community, which has been in Wrexham since the second world war, a thriving Portuguese community, and many others who make a significant contribution.

Wrexham is now a major manufacturing centre, with many well-known international brands based in the city, such as Kellogg’s, JCB and others. Our local brewing industry has seen a resurgence in recent years, with Wrexham Lager once again active and exporting across the world, alongside the likes of the Magic Dragon Brewery and others, plus hundreds of small businesses, which are the backbone of our economy. Wrexham is also home to many festivals, such as Focus Wales, and we look forward to welcoming the National Eisteddfod back to Wrexham next year. We also celebrate strong military links, with an Army barracks still located in the city and a proud history of service.

Of course, I could not talk about Wrexham and not mention football. Wrexham association football club is the third oldest professional association football club in the world, and our home ground, the Racecourse, is the world’s oldest international football stadium that still hosts international matches. Much in the spotlight recently, the club has an illustrious history. I know that certain Members of the House are Arsenal supporters, and in Wrexham we still take great pride in knocking out the then first division champions from the FA cup in 1992 and earning a reputation as giant killers. Of course, today Wrexham is a team transformed, since Hollywood stars Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney bought the club a few years ago. The difference they have made to the club and to Wrexham in just a short time is remarkable—back in the Football League after a 15-year absence, our first league title in 45 years, and back-to-back promotions.

Before I end, I would like to pay tribute to my predecessors. Sarah Atherton was the Conservative Member for Wrexham until the election this year. She was the only Conservative ever to represent Wrexham and the first woman to do so. I also pay tribute to her for the work she does for veterans. Simon Baynes gave great service to his constituents in Clwyd South.

Finally, I pay tribute to Ian Lucas, my Labour predecessor, who served in this House for 18 years, often sitting on the Benches wearing a Wrexham AFC tie, serving as a Minister and shadow Minister, and on Select Committees, most latterly on an inquiry into disinformation and social media. Diolch yn fawr, Madam Deputy Speaker.

[Several hon. Members rose—]