Youth Unemployment

Lord Young of Cookham Excerpts

Thursday 5th February 2026 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Young of Cookham]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to reduce youth unemployment.

[The Minister of State, Department for Education and Department for Work and Pensions (Baroness Smith of Malvern) (Lab)]

My Lords, the Government are investing over £1.5 billion through the youth guarantee and growth and skills levy to support 16 to 24 year-olds to gain the skills and experience they need to earn and learn. A key part of this is the jobs guarantee, which provides six months of paid work for every eligible 18 to 21 year-old on universal credit for 18 months, funded for 25 hours a week with wraparound support. Grant applications for phase 1 opened on 29 January to identify delivery partners, and delivery will begin from spring 2026 in six high-need areas before expanding nationally, supporting around 55,000 young people over three years.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful for that reply, and I welcome the initiatives the Minister has just mentioned, such as the youth guarantee. However, do not those initiatives need to be accompanied by welfare reform, which can quite often pull young people in the opposite direction? A few weeks ago, the Prime Minister said:

“Our welfare state is trapping people, not just in poverty but out of work—young people in particular”.


That was reinforced by Alan Milburn, the Government’s employment tsar, who said:

“We’re spending more money on health and disability benefits for 16 to 24-year-olds than we are on apprenticeships. Is that really the right priority?”


Will the forthcoming King’s Speech therefore take the difficult but necessary decisions to reform welfare and allay the concerns of the Minister’s colleagues?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

Well, this is welfare reform. It is wrong that there are 900,000 young people who are neither earning nor learning, which is why we are changing the system. We are ensuring that there is an earlier interview for young people. We are introducing 300,000 more opportunities for young people to gain work experience or training linked to an employer. Then we are ensuring that they have a backstop work placement that they will be expected to take at the end of 18 months. That is welfare reform, which this Government are putting in place to respond to the challenges left by the previous one.