Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what estimate she has made of the number of young people out of work, education and training in (a) Mid Cheshire constituency, (b) Cheshire and (c) England.

The department publishes statistics on those not in education, employment or training (NEET) for England from the labour force survey (LFS) for young people aged 16 to 24. This can be accessed at: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/neet-statistics-annual-brief.

The number of 16 to 24-year-olds considered as NEET in England at the end of 2023 is estimated to be 709,600, 11.9% of the population. However, these estimates are only published at national level due to limitations with sample sizes for lower-level geographies. Therefore, NEET rates for young people aged 16 to 24 in the Mid Cheshire constituency and Cheshire cannot be provided.

However, local authorities are required to encourage, enable or assist young people’s participation in education or training and return management information for young people aged 16 and 17. This data is published at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/neet-and-participation-local-authority-figures.

These figures show that of the 7,716 young people aged 16 and 17-years-old who were known to Cheshire East local authority, at the end of 2022, 205 were NEET or their activity was not known. This comprises 193 young people who were known to be NEET and 12 young people whom the local authority could not confirm their activity. This data is an average of December 2022, January 2023 and February 2023.

In Cheshire West and Chester local authority, of the 7,263 young people aged 16 and 17-years-old who were known to the local authority at the end of 2022, 329 were NEET or their activity was not known. This comprises of 274 young people who were known to be NEET and 55 young people whom the local authority could not confirm their activity. These statistics are published as transparency data, so some caution should be taken if using these figures. Data is not available for Mid Cheshire constituency.

In addition, 16 to 18 destination measures are published. These official statistics show the percentage of pupils not continuing to a sustained education, apprenticeship or employment destination in the year after completing 16 to 18 study, that is six months of continual activity. This can be used as a proxy for NEET at age 18. As Mid Cheshire was re-established as a constituency in 2024, no data is currently available, as the latest publication includes destinations in 2022/23. Data at parliamentary constituency level for 2022/23 can be found at: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/data-tables/permalink/819215d3-4c06-40ac-0f95-08dd167ca495.