Rachel Reeves’s plan to ‘abolish’ youth unemployment will not include tens of thousands signed off sick with anxiety or other mental health problems, it emerged yesterday.
Under the Chancellor’s ‘youth guarantee’, 18 to 21-year-olds who have been on Universal Credit for 18 months without earning or learning will be offered paid work.
If they refuse without a good reason, they will be stripped of their benefits, Ms Reeves said.
But thousands of youngsters on sickness benefits will not be included in the scheme, the Treasury confirmed.
It means young people signed off work with anxiety or depression will not be forced to try one of the government-backed jobs.
Last night the Tories warned that the scheme risked ‘incentivising’ those who ‘game the system’.
Shadow work and pensions spokesman Helen Whately told the Daily Mail: ‘Rachel Reeves‘s so-called youth jobs guarantee is already unravelling.
‘By excluding young people on sickness benefits, it risks trapping many on welfare and even incentivising those who game the system.
Rachel Reeves’s plan to ‘abolish’ youth unemployment will not include tens of thousands signed off sick with anxiety or other mental health problems, it emerged yesterday. Pictured: The Chancellor during her keynote speech at the Labour Party Conference on Monday
‘Worse still, Labour’s £25billion jobs tax and Unemployment Rights Bill makes it harder for businesses to hire and for young people to get on.’
Ms Whately added: ‘If Labour were serious about welfare reform, the Prime Minister would accept Kemi Badenoch’s offer to help him come up with a savings plan to get the benefits bill under control.’
Almost a million 16 to 24-year-olds – equivalent to one in eight – are not in education, employment or training, known as NEETs.
The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) said that, of those, around 100,000 are out of paid work and have been receiving Universal Credit for at least a year.
Another quarter of a million young people have been on the benefit for at least a year and are not working, yet are exempt from requirements to look for a job – usually because of health conditions or caring responsibilities.
Imran Tahir, senior research economist at IFS, said: ‘The key test for this policy will be whether it helps young people move into sustained jobs, rather than simply providing temporary placements.
‘And for that to happen, the precise design of the policy – and its ability to encourage employers to sign up to offer these placements – will be critical.’
Yesterday Ms Reeves also spoke of her desire to secure the ‘maximum’ economic and cultural benefits from a youth mobility scheme with Europe, raising fears of an influx of young adults from the Continent.
Under the Chancellor’s ‘youth guarantee’, 18 to 21-year-olds who have been on Universal Credit for 18 months without earning or learning will be offered paid work. Pictured: The Chancellor during her keynote speech at the conference on Monday, with Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer
Having started the year saying it had no plans for such a move, the Government is looking at introducing a ‘backpackers and baristas’ exchange-style scheme to allow tens of thousands of young Europeans to work, travel or study in the UK.
However, the Daily Mail understands it will not be a ‘one in, one out’ arrangement – meaning many more Europeans could come to Britain than vice versa.
Ministers had been opposed to the idea amid fears it could add to net migration, but positive public polling encouraged them to go further.
There has also been little resistance from opposition parties to the idea, while the EU has made it a cornerstone of negotiations for Sir Keir Starmer’s big plan for a ‘reset’ of post-Brexit relations.
Yesterday Ms Reeves said she did not want young people to ‘miss out on the chance to enrich their lives through travel, experiencing other cultures, working and studying abroad’.
‘Those opportunities cannot, and must not, be the sole preserve of the wealthy and the fortunate,’ she said in her speech to the Labour Party conference in Liverpool.
‘I can tell you today that we are working with the European Union to secure for young people in Britain the maximum economic and cultural opportunities available through an ambitious agreement on youth mobility.’
