Burnham set to urge Labour MPs to back Milburn’s youth employment reforms

Andy Burnham is expected to urge Labour MPs to support Alan Milburn’s proposed reforms to youth employment, which would reduce some benefit spending to fund more help into work. The proposals matter because the number of 16 to 24-year-olds not in education, employment or training exceeded one million earlier this year, while Labour faces opposition from MPs concerned about the impact on disabled young people and others who cannot work.

Milburn has proposed a legally binding “opportunity guarantee” of a job, training or employment support for young people, and argues that benefit spending is 25 times employment-support spending; he wants that ratio reduced to two to one. The government has also announced that more than 90,000 unemployed Universal Credit claimants aged 18 to 24 will be offered a funded six-month job by March 2029, with the scheme extended across England, Scotland and Wales. Burnham has not promised to adopt every recommendation, and some Labour MPs may seek to protect existing claimants.