Young People and Work: Milburn Interim Report

Toby Perkins Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd November 2026 Westminster Hall

[Andrew Ranger (Wrexham) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the findings of the Milburn Review into young people and work: interim report, published on 28 May 2026.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms McVey. I thank the Backbench Business Committee for allowing me to bring this debate forward.

Each generation is judged on the question of whether we leave the next one better off. Will they have greater opportunity, more security and the same hope that we had? Around 1 million young people across the United Kingdom are NEETs: not in education, employment or training. That is one in eight. Of those, six in 10 have never had a job—and the interim Milburn review warns that, without action, that number will be one in six within five years. If we do not act with the magnitude, imagination and substance that this moment demands, we risk failing on that generational question.

How did we get here—or, to put it better, how did we allow our young people to end up in this position? The systems set up in the shadow of the second world war to support and enable a good life for everyone in this country regardless of postcode or wealth are at the very core of meeting the challenge, but we must ask whether they are working as they should. Why does our welfare system spend £25 on benefits for young people for every £1 it spends on helping them into work? Why are young people who could work with the right support being signed off and left there with no route back? Why do 67% of NEET young people tell us that the curriculum does not prepare them for work or life?

The stark reality is that the institutional infrastructure that accompanies the system has been hollowed out, without anything to take its place. That is the youth clubs and community spaces where young people learn to work together, build relationships and find their place in the world; or the Saturday jobs, where they develop vital soft skills, learn the value of responsibility and discover what it means to be part of a team.

[Mr Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)]

Supported internships are an incredibly useful way of supporting young people who have an education, health and care plan along the pathway to work. They cost more and require significant investment, but are very cheap in comparison to seeing that young person living a life on benefits. Does my hon. Friend agree that we should be doing all we can to provide more supported internships, because that investment will make a long-term difference to getting people out of unemployment and into work?

[Andrew Ranger]

Yes, I totally agree; I will come on to that point later in my speech.

Too often, politics runs on short-term decisions, whatever the party or the Government. On this issue, short-termism will not do. The young people affected will not accept it, and nor should we. Picture a young person in my constituency of Wrexham—let us call him James. He is talented, but school never worked for him. He moves on to further education, but it is the wrong fit and does not work out. Before long, he is signed off and written off.

This all comes back to a moral mission that touches every postcode. The problem cannot be solved by the state alone; it needs businesses, third sector organisations and community groups—every one of us. It takes a village to raise a child. This is going to take a nation.

Six years ago, we asked young people to carry an extraordinary burden to protect older and vulnerable people from a pandemic. They did it without question. They sacrificed experiences, milestones and opportunities that the rest of us took for granted. That sacrifice is not without its aftershocks, many of which we have seen come to prominence in the last few years, particularly in health and educational outcomes.