Milburn NEET review: Anger crackles from the page but will Labour act?
Alan Milburn‘s review into Britain’s economically inactive youth (or NEETs) makes for extraordinary reading, but will the government act, asks Eliot Wilson
It is a testament to Sir Tony Blair’s legacy that in contemporary politics we can still use the word “Blairite” and it has instant meaning and intelligibility. After all, Blair resigned as Prime Minister nearly 19 years ago and Sir Keir Starmer is the seventh premier since then. Yet there is a cadre of leading lights from that era who have continued to hold considerable influence in Labour circles until now: Jonathan Powell, Peter Mandelson, Paul Corrigan, Michael Barber.
Alan Milburn was one of the most formidable of all. By some margin the best health secretary of the last 30 years, he brought to that bed of nails vision, clarity of purpose, determination and an ability to discard the velvet glove when the iron fist on its own was more effective. Last December, the Prime Minister appointed Milburn to conduct a review into young people and work; in particular, he was asked to examine why there is a large and growing cohort of 16- to 24-year-olds who are not in education, employment or training, dubbed “NEETs”.
Britain’s ‘lost generation’
Last week, Milburn delivered an interim report. He emphasised the scale of the problem: the number of NEETs is now nearly 1m, one in eight young people and the rate has hardly fallen below one in 10 for the past 25 years. More alarmingly, 60 per cent of NEETs – more than half a million young people – have never had a job, and are not just unemployed but are not looking for work.
This is not just a matter of current economic output and prosperity. Milburn is blisteringly frank on the deeper problems: “Behind the statistics lie individual lives: aspirations thwarted, opportunities lost, futures placed on hold… today Britain faces a generational fault line. We are at risk of a lost generation. That is a moral crisis. It has economic consequences.”
There are two elements to this. The first is the obvious effect on the country’s economy. Milburn’s report estimates that the cumulative annual cost of 1m NEETs is £125bn, and points out that challenges like labour shortages, low growth, rising welfare costs and pressure on public services are all exacerbated by the number of young people who are economically inactive.
Alongside that, Milburn is not afraid of making a clear moral argument which sometimes sounds as if it could have come from the grocery shop and Methodist chapel of Grantham. The review, he says, “unashamedly extols the virtues of work… good work”, and he sets out its importance: “Work is not only about income, although income matters. It is about connection. It is about self-respect. It is about independence… the first steps into work are often the first steps into adult life.”
What lies at the heart of this crisis? Milburn identifies a nexus of growing ill health, especially mental ill health, an associated increase in disability, a fall in entry-level roles in the workforce and recruitment processes which are “more remote, more automated and less human”. In response to these problems, “there is neither a system nor a plan to increase youth participation”, and those institutions which do exist are outdated and unresponsive. Instead, the opportunity to join the labour market has to be hard-wired into education, healthcare and welfare. “A whole system reset is needed.”
Will Labour act this time?
The review is an extraordinary document. When Milburn’s narration is clear, anger crackles and sparks from the page. That is understandable: he conducted a review of participation in the professions for Gordon Brown’s government in 2009, the most radical recommendations of which were sidelined or quietly dropped; and he resigned as chair of the Social Mobility Commission in 2017, shortly after the publication of its annual report, because he had lost faith in Theresa May’s ability and determination to tackle what she had called “burning injustice” affecting poor, disadvantaged and marginalised families.
Will this review be any different? It hardly takes a heavily burdened pessimist to point out that the Prime Minister’s future is under severe threat and that both the government and the Labour Party are drifting into a kind of paralysis while Andy Burnham tries to return to the House of Commons and in all likelihood challenge Sir Keir Starmer for the keys to Downing Street.
Economic growth is almost imperceptible, despite Rachel Reeves telling anyone who will listen what a successful Chancellor of the Exchequer she is proving. Welfare reform is a particularly incendiary issue: the government lost its nerve and retreated on what became the Universal Credit Act 2025 in the face of a potential backbench rebellion. There is now neither any prospect of nor an appetite for difficult and painful prioritisation to prevent the overall welfare bill from reaching £100bn by 2030.
If Starmer were secure in his position, he might at least be hand-wringingly earnest in agreeing with Milburn’s diagnosis, though might take little or no action. A Burnham premiership, given how much ankle the Mayor of Greater Manchester has shown to Labour’s left wing, is unlikely to have any sympathy for Milburn’s fair but demanding doctrine of self-improvement and dedication.
It is impossible to deny that youth participation in the labour market is a crisis. There is also widespread consensus that Something Must Be Done. But not this, not now, not in this way. A brave Prime Minister would give Milburn a peerage, the seal of office as work and pensions secretary and free rein to take on the crisis. No brave Prime Minister is in sight, however, so the best we are likely to get is a pious echo of St Augustine: give me welfare reform, o Lord, but not yet.
Eliot Wilson is a writer and historian. He is also a senior fellow for national security at the Coalition for Global Prosperity and a contributing editor at Defence on the Brink