Young People and Work: Milburn Interim Report

Gareth Snell Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd November 2026 Westminster Hall

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

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms McVey. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Wrexham (Andrew Ranger) for securing this debate. A lot has been said by hon. Members from across the House that I will seek not to repeat, but I would like to push the Minister on a couple of points coming out of the Milburn review. Its diagnosis shines a light on what was known to most of us. Indeed, Stoke-on-Trent has quite often been seen as an exemplar both of where things were terrible and of where things are getting better. Our NEET rate has dropped from 16% to below 10% because of work done by partnerships, but we still have more to do.

Part of that is because our local environment has flexed to do what it needs to, sometimes against Ofsted and Government guidelines. I commend to the Minister the work done by the CEO Futures Forum, which brings together multi-academy trusts from across the city to look at the pathways that young people need now for the jobs that will exist in the future, much as my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham Selly Oak (Al Carns) said. We are constrained by the fact that good apprenticeship providers are unable to take on the numbers of young people who want to do apprenticeships, because they are held back by the de minimis rules under the apprenticeship provider and assessment register regulations. I urge the Minister and her Department to look at how, if this is a moral crusade, we can use our entire arsenal to ensure that every young person has the right pathway. If need be, that should include liberalising some of the rules around the registration of apprenticeship providers so that groups such as Dan Canavan’s Spark Group can take on the young people they want.

I urge the Minister not to fall back on some of the rudimentary politics that suggests that artificially capping the wages we pay young people, in contrast to the wages we pay a full-time adult, is a way to address the NEET problem. People should be paid fairly for the work they do, regardless of their age or the way they do it. That was a Government manifesto commitment, but the siren voices are calling for it to be slowed down. I urge the Government to resist that as much as they can.

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[Lilian Greenwood]

I agree with my hon. Friend that provision of affordable and convenient transport is vital. I shall leave that to my colleagues in the Department for Transport.

At the heart of the Government’s current approach is the youth guarantee, which will be backed by an additional £2.5 billion by 2029, alongside investment in the growth and skills levy. Together, that funding will support almost 1 million young people and create up to 500,000 opportunities to earn or learn. We are strengthening support at every stage of a young person’s journey, and through an expanded network of youth hubs and the youth guarantee gateway, young people will receive earlier and more intensive support.

We owe young people that support. As my hon. Friend the Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell) said, this generation has faced, and is facing, a unique combination of challenges. They are not to blame for their predicament; it is the system that has failed them. As many hon. Members have said, the interim Milburn report found that 84% of NEET young people want to find a job, education or training—and I agree that we need to find a better acronym. The will is there, but it needs to be matched by support and opportunities. We are giving employers practical incentives to create those, including the £3,000 youth jobs grant and a £2,000 apprenticeship hiring payment. Also, I remind all hon. Members that employers pay zero national insurance on employees who are under the age of 21 and earn less than £50,000.

Our wider reform of employment support also matters. The new jobs and careers service will bring together employment, skills and career support, with stronger links between employers, local areas and people looking for work. The objective is simple: to have a service focused not on processing people, but on helping them to find work, build skills and progress. Personalised support will be at the heart of our approach, to help people to access the support that best meets their needs. We have launched new digital tools, expanded community-based delivery and strengthened our employer offer.

We are also increasing access to work experience and training, which will play a critical role in breaking that age-old cycle—no experience, no job; and no job, no experience. My hon. Friend the Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire South (Johanna Baxter) got her first chance at a vet’s, and my Saturday job was at the newly opened Superdrug in Bolton. Such opportunities help us to learn what work is like, but far too many young people have not been getting them. Therefore, as my hon. Friend the Member for North West Leicestershire (Amanda Hack) highlighted, work experience is as important as, if not more important than, ever.

However, where unemployment becomes entrenched, we must go further. That is why the jobs guarantee will offer eligible 18 to 24-year-olds who have been claiming universal credit and looking for work for 18 months a fully subsidised, six-month paid job. That offer is already changing lives for the better. In August, the Secretary of State came to Boots in Nottingham to meet young people who are benefiting from the jobs guarantee. He spoke about how remarkable it was to see the transformation in their self-belief, confidence and hope for the future. We are going to see more of that. Following the first phase of the programme, national roll-out will begin this month across 25 areas. The programme is expected to support more than 90,000 young people over the next three years.

Crucially, we are also extending that opportunity to eligible young disabled people and young people with long-term health conditions. The hon. Member for Horsham (John Milne) will be pleased to hear that from April 2027, eligible young people receiving health-related benefits can voluntarily take up that offer shortly after their work capability assessments. They are going to the front of the queue, because nobody should be written off because of their health. Through programmes including Connect to Work, WorkWell, Access to Work and disability employment advisers, we are bringing employment and health support closer together. Our approach recognises that different people face different combinations of barriers and that we must see people in the round and take a joined-up approach to how we offer support.

We also know that we cannot solve this challenge only when a young person walks through the jobcentre door. Prevention must begin much earlier. There is a strong relationship, as hon. Members have said, between disengagement from school and becoming NEET later in life. That is why improving attendance is fundamental to our approach. We have set a national ambition to increase school attendance to over 94% by 2028-29, and we are supporting schools through clearer expectations, better data and new RISE—regional improvement for standards and excellence—attendance and behaviour hubs. Alongside those actions, we are fixing the broken SEND system and reforming careers provision so that young people have greater exposure to the workplace before they leave education.

I mentioned earlier how crucial work experience is. That is why our ambition is for every young person to receive two weeks of meaningful workplace experience during secondary school, building progressively through key stages 3 and 4. There are 44 careers hubs supporting that work, while additional provision is targeted towards young people who face the greatest barriers.

[Gareth Snell]

The aspiration of work experience is laudable, but the guidance that came out in the recent keeping children safe in education update now requires, if a young person will be spending more than three days in a workplace, that workplace to undergo a Disclosure and Barring Service check, as part of its being an unregulated activity. That is a significant barrier for many small businesses, particularly those that have previously hosted young people, but now have to go through the burden of getting a check. Could the Minister take that back to the Department and work with the Department for Education to find a way of ironing out that kink, so that we keep children safe but do not preclude the opportunities they previously had?

[Lilian Greenwood]

I can assure my hon. Friend that we are aware of that issue and we are setting about addressing it.

Alongside all those measures, we are reforming post-16 education so that young people can have clearer academic, technical and vocational routes. We are transforming the apprenticeship levy, backed by an additional £1 billion, supporting 50,000 more young people into apprenticeships. New foundation apprenticeships, fully funded apprenticeships for eligible under-25s and additional support for employers will all create more routes into skilled employment. As my hon. Friend the Member for Bracknell (Peter Swallow) rightly said, the skills needs are changing in the world of AI.

These reforms represent significant action, but we recognise that the Government must continue to listen and learn. Alan Milburn’s interim report set out starkly the scale and complexity of the participation challenge facing this generation. Our ambition is straightforward: wherever a young person starts from, whatever barriers they face, they should have a genuine route into education, training or good work. I hope that reassures my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central.

Achieving that ambition means intervening earlier and joining up services across departmental boundaries, as my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham Selly Oak (Al Carns) said. It means working with employers, colleges and local organisations such as those highlighted by many hon. Members, including Saints Works in Southampton, the Spear Programme in York and Making It in Aylesbury, because, as my hon. Friend the Member for Southport (Patrick Hurley) said, place-based solutions show great results. It also means refusing to accept that any young person is destined to remain outside opportunity. I should have said that it also means better public transport, especially in rural areas, as my hon. Friend the Member for Hexham (Joe Morris) and my hon. Friend the Member for Derbyshire Dales (John Whitby) emphasised.