Young people who turn down a job after 18 months on benefits face being stripped of their state handouts, Rachel Reeves will announce on Monday.
The Chancellor will use her speech to Labour conference to promise all people aged 18 to 21 will have education, training or work, giving new details of the Government’s “youth guarantee” reports The Telegraph.
The policy proposal, which echoes a plan Rishi Sunak floated in 2024, forms part of a new focus on “contribution” that will be a theme of Reeves’s address. The news emerges as humiliation for Keir Starmer was revealed as a majority of Labour members want him gone by next election.
The Chancellor will promise to abolish long-term youth unemployment as she says that people are being stripped of their “dignity” by welfare dependence.
Government promises relief for benefits bill
Government sources argue the promise will help thousands of young people into a job, easing the pressure on the soaring out-of-work benefits bill.
But it was unclear exactly how ministers would deliver the jobs guarantee. The indication is the Government could partly fund private sector jobs or find ones in the public sector.
Chancellor vows end to wasted potential
Reeves will deliver a stark message about the cost of young people being locked out of work and training opportunities.
“I will never be satisfied while too many people’s potential is wasted, frozen out of employment, education, or training. There’s no defending it,” she will say.
“It’s bad for business, bad for taxpayers, bad for our economy, and it scars people’s prospects throughout their lives.
“At the spending review, I pledged record investment in skills to support our young people. And so today, I can announce that with that investment we will fund a new youth guarantee.
“Every young person will be guaranteed either a place in a college, for those who want to continue their studies or an apprenticeship, to help them learn a trade vital to our plans to rebuild the country, or one-to-one support to find a job.”
Ladders of opportunity promised
The Chancellor will say that her guarantee would “ensure that any young person out of work for 18 months will be given a paid work placement. Real work, practical experience, and new skills”.
She will promise: “We won’t leave a generation of young people to languish without prospects – denied the dignity, the security and the ladders of opportunity that good work provides.
“Just as the last Labour government, with its new deal for young people, abolished long-term youth unemployment I can commit this government to nothing less than the abolition of long-term youth unemployment. We’ve done before and we’ll do it again.”
One in eight young people left behind
Currently, one in eight 16 to 24-year-olds are not in education, work, or training. The number of people in this category has risen by a third in the past four years, largely under the Tories.
Ministers have previously talked about a “youth guarantee”, but not spelt out the specifics. People aged 18 to 21 who have been on Universal Credit for 18 months will be the target.
No excuses for turning down jobs
People who are offered a job after 18 months on benefits and turn it down must provide a “reasonable excuse” or face being stripped of their payments.
Pat McFadden, the new Work and Pensions Secretary, said: “A youth guarantee means opportunity is not just for the few, but for all.
“And with that opportunity comes responsibility too – to take up the training, the apprenticeship or the work that is offered.”
The policy has similarities with a plan Sunak unveiled in March 2024, when the then prime minister said benefits would be removed if a job was rejected after a year.
