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 not in employment, education or training in Runcorn and Helsby constituency.

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. These statistics are available here: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/neet-statistics-annual-brief. The number of 16 to 24 year olds estimated as NEET in England at the end of 2023 was estimated to be 709,600, representing 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 Runcorn and Helsby constituency 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 age 16 and 17. This data is published here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/neet-and-participation-local-authority-figures. The data shows that of the 7,263 young people aged 16 and 17 years old who were known to Cheshire West and Chester local authority at the end of 2022, 329 were NEET or their activity was not known. Of the 3,255 young people aged 16 and 17 years old who were known to Halton local authority at the end of 2022, 158 were NEET or their activity was not known. These statistics are published as transparency data so some caution should be taken if using these figures.

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. The latest publication includes destinations in 2022/23 by parliamentary constituency boundaries at that time. Data can be found at parliamentary constituency level here: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/data-tables/permalink/819215d3-4c06-40ac-0f95-08dd167ca495.