Youth Unemployment

Gareth Snell Excerpts

Wednesday 28th January 2026 Commons Chamber

[Helen Whately]

My right hon. Friend makes the point so clearly. It is so obvious to the Conservatives, as the party of business, that if the Government keep taxing business, there will be fewer jobs—but they just do not seem to get it.

Labour Members do know that they are in trouble, though. That is why they are talking up their youth programmes, youth hubs and youth guarantees—[Laughter.] Labour Members are laughing, but they should listen. The hon. Member for Exeter (Steve Race) says from a sedentary position that it was our programme —exactly that! Most of these things are just rebrands of programmes that the Conservatives started. We started youth hubs. Changing the name of the youth offer to the “youth guarantee” does not solve the problem. Of course there is part to play for training programmes and work placements in helping people to bridge the gap between school and work, but Government programmes are not the answer to the fundamental problem. Young people want jobs, and this Government are killing jobs.

[Gareth Snell (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

The shadow Secretary of State is obviously well known for speaking clearly and candidly, which is refreshing. Can she clearly and candidly answer these questions? Which rights does she think young people should be denied in order to get into work? By how much would she cut the minimum wage to facilitate those young people getting back into work? Unfortunately, she cannot have it both ways. She has just made the point that those rights are hindering business, so what would she do to cut them? Will she make a clear commitment at the Dispatch Box?

[Helen Whately]

I enjoyed the way in which the hon. Gentleman led into his question with a bit of flattery, but I will not be drawn on his attempt to make me talk about the minimum wage or down the routes that he asks me to take, as much as he may love me to do so.

However, I will talk about our record in government. We halved unemployment. We got record numbers of people into work. We backed businesses to create 800 jobs for every day that we were in government. We reformed welfare to make work pay. We brought down the benefits bill. None of those things are on the cards under this Labour Government. They are crushing businesses with taxes and red tape, destroying jobs and driving up unemployment. They U-turned on welfare savings and put up taxes on working people by £26 billion at the last Budget to pay for the ballooning benefits bill.

I will not argue that we got everything right. Some of the graduates struggling to get jobs have degrees that are not actually of any help to them, and they took those degrees when we were in government. Under us, through the pandemic and afterwards, the number of young people dropping out of work and on to benefits because of their mental health went up. We wanted to end the stigma around mental illness, but the consequences have been far-reaching. Our welfare system was not designed to support people with milder mental health problems or milder neurodiversity, or for a time when a quarter of people report themselves as disabled.

The system is not working; instead, it is funnelling people off work and on to benefits. Now, with the Government’s failure to reform welfare, young people are stuck in a benefits trap—they are better off on benefits and fearful of losing them if they get a job. Let us add to that the stress and misery of trying and failing again and again to get a job, because jobs are fewer and farther between. Most young people I have spoken to do not want to be on benefits, but that is where they are ending up.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dame Harriett Baldwin]

I am sad to see that the hon. Gentleman does not recognise that that young person will now be standing next to another young person who is unable to get a job. Surely he must agree that the level at which people are being paid has had an effect on the fact that there are fewer people in these jobs.

[Gareth Snell]

rose—

[Dame Harriett Baldwin]

Government Members do not have to listen to me; they can listen to the Federation of Small Businesses, which said that those wage rises risk pricing young people out of the labour market. That is not me speaking; that is the Federation of Small Businesses, and I am sure the hon. Gentleman will agree with it.

[Gareth Snell]

The Federation of Small Businesses will be looking for answers to those policy challenges that it is rightly putting to this place. What would the hon. Member’s answer be? By how much should young people’s pay be reduced in order to strike the balance that so many Opposition Members have talked about? By how much should the minimum wage be reduced for young people so that they can be guaranteed a job?

[Dame Harriett Baldwin]

I have news that will perhaps come as a bit of a shock to the hon. Gentleman: it is his party that is in power, and it should be his Front Benchers and the Chancellor he should be having that conversation with. Labour market economists at the Resolution Foundation—not normally considered to be right-leaning, by the way—have noted that when minimum wages rise faster than productivity, employers tend to favour experienced workers, disadvantaging young applicants. The very people Labour claims to champion are the ones being priced out of the labour market.

Thirdly, Labour’s business rates reforms have piled pressure on our high streets. As we have heard time and again in this debate, it is hospitality, retail and small firms that traditionally give young people their first job. Indeed, my first job was behind the bar at a now defunct pub; it taught me an enormous amount, and I was very grateful for the opportunity. The Confederation of British Industry has said that rising business rates “suppress investment and hiring”. When fixed costs for employers increase, their capacity to hire is reduced.

Lastly, and perhaps most damaging of all, is Labour’s Employment Rights Act 2025, which introduces sweeping day one rights across the board. The Government’s own economic analysis of the Bill says:

“higher labour costs could reduce demand for work, damaging the employment prospects of the same workers the package is trying to support…the risks are highest for workers with the weakest attachment to the labour market…and the youngest workers, since they are still gaining experience and skills.”

This is not a partisan point—this is the Government’s impact assessment of their own legislation.

According to the Youth Futures Foundation,

“the risk profile of recruiting young people has increased”.

The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development reports that employers are already reducing recruitment plans, particularly for inexperienced workers, due to regulatory uncertainty.

--- Later in debate ---

[Andrew Western]

The challenge in the NHS is markedly different—I would freely acknowledge that—but the right hon. Gentleman is talking about other roles in the NHS. It is not unusual for people to hold more than one job if they are operating as bank staff, so they do not have the uncertainty about receiving no funding at all.

The right hon. Gentleman also made the criticism that the jobs guarantee only kicked in after 18 months. That is the final stage of a range of new interventions that this Government are putting in place, including an additional supported conversation at 13 weeks, followed by four weeks of intensive work coach support with specialist teams. It is not just a question of a jobs guarantee after 18 months; a broad range of interventions are being put in place.

The hon. Member for Beaconsfield (Joy Morrissey), who I do not think is in her place, said that apprenticeships were an opportunity for young people to find work, and I quite agree with her, but the reforms of the Conservative party had the effect of delivering a situation where, as the Liberal Democrat spokesperson said, the average age of those entering into apprenticeships was significantly increased. We are seeking to reverse that trend, and it is important that we do so. This is a key mechanism for giving young people the skills that they will need in the future. I believe she also called this a youth unemployment crisis of this Government’s making. I fail to see how that can possibly be the case when there was such a stark increase in the youth unemployment figures in the final two years of the Conservative Government.

The hon. Member for Bromsgrove (Bradley Thomas) said that the best welfare support of all was a job, so he will be delighted to see the additional 513,000 people who have entered into employment over the past 12 months. The hon. Member for Leicester East (Shivani Raja), who is also not here, said that she was tired of hearing about this Government’s ambition, but the Conservatives had a paucity of just that. They left almost a million NEETs, a welfare system that disincentivised work—something we have begun to address—and an employment rate lower than before the pandemic. They can accuse us of being too ambitious if they like, but they had given up on delivering opportunity for our young people—something that this Government will never do.

The right hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness (Graham Stuart) asked how we would encourage an employer to take a chance on a young person. We are doing that by not charging national insurance contributions for under-21s or for apprentices under 25, by fully funding apprentices at SMEs and by placing young people in six months of guaranteed work if they have been out of the workforce for 18 months so that they have the chance to prove themselves. That is a range of interventions that we are putting in place because we recognise that there is a challenge with youth unemployment. It is long standing and it is not new, but we take it very seriously.

[Gareth Snell]

On the point that the right hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness made, the natural extrapolation to what I believe the Conservatives are suggesting is that the way to incentivise that employer would be to allow them to pay less than the minimum wage or indeed cut the minimum wage rate for young people. I would oppose that. Would the Minister?