𝓤𝓷𝓲𝓽𝓮𝓭 𝓝𝓮𝔀𝓼

Whoever succeeds Sir Keir Starmer as Prime Minister must not repeat his weakness when it comes to the urgent task of getting Britons off benefits and into work. A catastrophe is unfolding among Briain’s young people as our well-intentioned welfare state fuels worklessness.

Former Health Secretary Alan Milburn’s landmark report into young people and work warns that within five years the number of 16 to 24-year-olds not in employment, education or training could hit 1.25 million. We ignore his warning of a “lost generation” at our peril. Mr Milburn says it is a “catastrophic failing” that for an unemployed young person with a disability “taking a pathway to inactivity can offer higher income, less hassle and lower risk”.

This is scandalous. Mr Milburn is not a radical Right-winger on a mission to torch the benefits system but the former Labour MP for Darlington. Where in the present Labour cabinet can you find this readiness to confront reality and rescue young people from lives of lonely isolation and wasted potential? He says reform is “long overdue” when it comes to “education, skills, health, and welfare”.

Labour completely failed to hit the ground running on a reform agenda when it took power in 2024, seemingly happier to hand out generous pay deals to aggressive trade unions and launch shock tax raids than risk angering Left-wingers by tackling a crisis already in clear view.

The tragedy of Sir Keir is that he arrived in Downing Street looking like the most powerful prime minister since when Sir Tony Blair won his own landslide in 1997. Sir Keir’s party captured 412 of the 650 seats in the House of Commons. This was a historic opportunity to tackle the problems that previous prime ministers parked in the “too difficult” file.

Labour spent 14 years in Opposition and Sir Keir had been Leader of the Opposition since April 2020. It has no shortage of staffers and supporters with impressive qualifications – surely it would have worked up bold policies on tackling worklessness? After all, it is the “labour” party. Alas, a leader who strove so hard to wrest control of the party away from Left-wingers and cement his grip on its governing body failed to come up a plan for government to tackle such gargantuan challenges. Labour could have commissioned research such as Mr Milburn’s while in Opposition and arrived with an “oven-ready” plan and a clear mandate for radical change.

Instead, the party is below 20% in the polls and still stewing on what to do in office.

Last summer’s attempts to curtail access to some benefits looked like nothing more than a cost-cutting exercise. Sir Keir could not command the support of his MPs and his authority took a blow from which it never recovered when he was forced to shelve the boldest proposals.

The absence of a Welfare Reform Bill in the King’s Speech was the final evidence that the Government as it stands is incapable of taking action.

Now the Prime Minister is unlikely to be in office long enough to even start the emergency effort required to rescue young people from hopelessness, and the entire Labour party could be turfed out of power in three years’ time.

The immediate challenge for Andy Burnham and other aspiring leaders is to avoid making commitments to Labour’s hard core socialist base which will tie their hands in office.

When Sir Keir was running to succeed Jeremy Corbyn he promised activists he would “abolish Universal Credit and end the Tories’ cruel sanctions regime”. But as Mr Milburn argues, the challenge now for a party that played so pivotal a role in the creation of the welfare state is building a “working state”.

The next Labour leader faces a choice between abandoning young people and standing up to his or her own backbenchers, trade unions and well-organised charity lobbyists. This will require discipline, nerve and a sense of mission that has been altogether absent from the Starmer administration – and giving Mr Milburn a role in Government to drive it through would be a bold statement of intent.

Sir Tony Blair this week warned that “by the end of this decade, we could be spending more on incapacity and disability benefits than on defence”. Urging Labour to embrace the “horribly hard” work of welfare reform, he said: “If the Conservative Party repeats its offer of working together on welfare, Labour should accept the offer.”

This triple-election-winner knows he has few fans in today’s Labour party. Leadership contenders can expect to be challenged to rule out working with the Tories in the coming days and weeks, but saving Britain’s youth from despair and deprivation should be a national effort.

Mr Burnham and his backers should remember that if they win the Labour leadership but dodge the difficult work of reform and take their party to a destructive defeat, their legacy will be miserable.

It is not just Labour which faces tough choices. The Conservatives must convince the public that welfare reform is as about much more than scything spending. Parents and grandparents – the people who will decide the next election – are worried sick about their children who today have no prospect of a job and no chance of owning their own home.

Reform UK needs to live up to its own name and offer bold proposals for how it would restore hope.

If Britain’s political parties cannot tackle this urgent crisis then Britons will lose faith in democracy itself. Teenagers and young people – including graduates – cannot wait half a decade for help. The task is urgent and must not be ducked; everyone with an honour of a seat in Parliament must rise to this challenge.