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Teenagers will get skills training at the Premier League, Royal Shakespeare Company and Channel 4 as part of a government drive to get hundreds of thousands into jobs or education and make sure “no young person is left behind”.
Some of Britain’s biggest cultural and sporting institutions will provide work or training opportunities as part of a £45m “trailblazer” scheme across eight English regions, including Liverpool, Tees Valley and the East Midlands.
Ministers are announcing sweeping changes to the welfare system and out-of-work support on Tuesday, as part of a plan to get more people into work and cut the welfare bill, which has increased since the Covid crisis, with more than 9 million people now economically inactive.
However, further measures to overhaul the multibillion-pound health and disability benefits system are not expected until next year. The government has already said it will honour Conservative proposals to make £3bn worth of cuts, but will do so through its own reforms.
Labour wants to tackle the one in eight young people aged 18 to 24 who are not currently in education, employment or training. Ministers have already warned that they will lose their benefits if they refuse to take up opportunities.
“Almost 1 million young people are neither earning nor learning. That’s bad for them and bad for the country. It’s time for this change,” Liz Kendall, the work and pensions secretary, said.
“These organisations are already doing inspiring work with disadvantaged young people and helping them build the skills and confidence to get on. We need to champion this and build on it – because our young people deserve the best start in life.”
There are about 70,000 18 to 21-year-olds on universal credit in the pilot scheme areas who could be eligible for the skills training, although ministers hope that the “youth guarantee” could eventually be introduced to about 340,000 young people across the country.
The wide-ranging measures to tackle economic inactivity will be announced in the Get Britain Working white paper, backed by £240m of funding. Labour has promised to increase the employment rate to 80% from about 75%, bringing about 2 million more people into work.
As well as providing extra capacity to cut waiting lists at the 20 NHS trusts in areas with the highest levels of economic inactivity, Kendall’s plans include an expansion of mental health support and a greater focus on prevention to stop people becoming ill in the first place.
A record 2.8 million people are out of work because of long-term sickness. The plan includes three NHS accelerators to stop people falling out of work completely due to ill health, which will be piloted in the north-east of England, South Yorkshire and West Yorkshire.
Alongside the focus on improving health, jobcentres in England will be replaced by a new £55m national jobs and careers service, which is expected to have a greater focus on helping people back into work rather than simply administering and monitoring benefit claims.
Staff at jobcentres will have more flexibility to offer a more personalised service to those seeking work, as well as access to new coaching academies to learn more skills – including AI tools – to better support people to find jobs.
However, the ambition to move away from the “tick box” culture in job centres, and for staff to become highly trained with strong contacts among local employers, is unlikely to happen overnight.
The previous government shut down dozens of jobcentres over the last few years, making it harder for many people to get what support is on offer without travelling long distances.
Mayors and councils in the eight pilot areas will be given new powers to join up local work, health and skills support in ways that meet the specific needs of their local areas, backed by £125m in funding.
An independent review will also be launched of how employers can be better supported to take on people with disabilities and to keep them in the workplace, concluding next summer.
The UK is the only major economy where the employment rate has fallen over the last five years, largely because more people are out of work due to long-term ill health, and because the employment support system is ill equipped to respond to the growing challenge.
Keir Starmer said the reforms would “put an end to the culture of blaming and shaming people who for too long haven’t been getting the support they need to get back to work” and help people into “decent, well-paid jobs”.
The prime minister ruled out calling another general election, after a petition on parliament’s website calling for one was signed by more than 2 million people, but said he was “not surprised” some people who did not support Labour might want a second poll.
“Look, I remind myself that very many people didn’t vote Labour at the last election,” he told ITV’s This Morning programme. “I’m not surprised that many of them want a rerun. That isn’t how our system works.
“There will be plenty of people who didn’t want us in the first place. So, what my focus is on is the decisions that I have to make every day.”
Starmer acknowledged his first few months in office had been difficult, but added: “I wouldn’t swap a single day in opposition for a day in power. It’s much better to be in power to do things, rather than the frustration, as I found it, in opposition for all of those long years where we were just able to say what we would do.”
While the vast majority of those signing the petition are from the UK, it has also gained support from other countries, with more than 1,200 people from the US adding their name, and a similar number from France.
American signatories may have been made aware of the petition by Elon Musk, an ally of the US president-elect, Donald Trump, who shared it on his social media platform X. Downing Street has sought to avoid being drawn into a war of words with the billionaire businessman.
