Key facts
- Milburn said the number of young people aged 16 to 24 not in education, employment or training is about 1 million.
- Milburn said additional investment in young people would cost billions of pounds over a 10-year period.
- Milburn's review, due on November 17, will promise almost half a million job and education opportunities within a decade.
- The review will recommend most under-25s lose eligibility for Pip and the health element of universal credit.
- McFadden said young people claiming Pip had doubled since the start of the decade.
- McFadden said the number of young people on the health element of universal credit had risen by 80%.
Alan Milburn said on November 15, 2026 that there is no such thing as a free lunch, answering critics who want the government to cut out-of-work benefits for young people faster. The former health secretary publishes a review on November 17 that urges ministers to reform the benefits system to address youth unemployment.
Milburn told the BBC's Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg programme that the government would have to be candid with people. He said it would take 10 years for the benefits bill to come down and for the country to reach a reasonable level of youth unemployment as a result of his recommendations, and that the extra investment in young people would cost billions of pounds over that period.
He said the crisis could not be fixed sooner with a magic wand. Asked about crude cuts, he said young people would simply show up somewhere else on the government ledger. Asked what he would say to critics such as opposition leader Kemi Badenoch, who has called for benefits to be slashed over a short period, Milburn said willing the ends means willing the means. He said he did not think anyone in the country found it tolerable that about 1 million young people aged 16 to 24 are not in education, employment or training.
The review will promise almost half a million job and education opportunities within a decade and advise sweeping changes to benefits for under-25s. It will recommend that some young people with disabilities lose their ongoing personal independence payment and instead apply to local funds for short-term expenses and equipment. Entitlement for those with the most severe needs will be protected, but most under-25s will no longer be eligible for either Pip or the health element of universal credit and will get a new youth allowance paid at the standard universal credit rate.
Work and pensions secretary Pat McFadden told Sky News's Sunday Morning programme that the overhaul would have an element of compulsion for young people not in education, employment or training. He cited the Netherlands, where he said teams literally knock on your door with options for training or work. On the BBC programme he warned that some people would receive fewer benefits, saying the number of young people claiming Pip had doubled since the start of the decade and the number on the health element of universal credit had risen by 80%.
Asked whether he agreed that young people should not be able to claim health-related benefits, McFadden said that was not what Milburn was saying. He said people with a long-term disability would get more than they do now, that a benefit would exist for extra costs and a local fund for short-term needs, and that others would get more support to find work. He said someone aged 20 signing on to long-term sickness benefits has more chance of still being on them at 30 than of holding a steady job in between.
The Labour government expects opposition to the recommendations from its own MPs on the left of the party, who rebelled against Keir Starmer's welfare reforms in the summer. Milburn said Labour MPs know their constituencies have hundreds, sometimes thousands, of young people doomed to a life on benefits.