Stef Benstead

Vicky Spratt Verified account @Victoria_Spratt · 1d

On Milburn and young people - this is bigger than benefits. It is about a system that isn’t working on any level.

I have covered stories of young people who use PIP to pay for their housing or who were signed off as “disabled” by the benefits system when they didn’t want to be because it’s all that could be done for them in that moment.

This is about jobs. Young people applying for hundreds and hearing nothing back.

This is about housing. Young people not being able to move out of home, if they’re lucky enough to have one to move out of.

This is about education. Young people do not feel that school is working for them and want more training opportunities.

Milburn is calling for an ambitious reset of the welfare state - a new system for the young - but for it to be successful it will need to create new quality opportunities, particularly in places where they are scarce like Blackpool and Middlesbrough.

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Steven Swinford Verified account @Steven_Swinford · 1d

EXCLUSIVE:

Young people will be moved off the main sickness and disability benefits under radical plans to overhaul the welfare state and invest billions of pounds more in employment support.

Alan Milburn, who has spent the past year conducting a review into the one million people aged 18-24 who are not in education, employment or training, said he had concluded that the system needed to be rebuilt “from scratch” to stop people being trapped on benefits “in perpetuity”

In an interview with The Times, the former health secretary acknowledged that the plans would not be “pain-free” as some people would lose out on financial support. However, he said reforming the system offered the best chance of young people finding work and building a “good life”

Under Milburn’s plans, young people would no longer be able to claim the two main sickness and disability benefits: the health element of universal credit and the personal independence payment (Pip). They would instead move on to a new “youth allowance”, paid at the same level as the standard rate of universal credit

Many of those who receive Pip, designed to cover additional costs faced by those with a disability, will move on to a new “additional cost allowance”, which will cover day-to-day costs relating to their conditions. Like Pip, it would not be means tested, or linked to whether claimants were in work. Fewer people are likely to be entitled to it

Those with the most profound disabilities who are not capable of working would be given a new benefit, paid at a higher rate

Milburn will recommend investing billions in employment support, including one-to-one personal advisers, work placements and job subsidies, resulting in young people being presented with a “menu of options” to help them find work

“I’m not saying that any of this will be easy, or that it will be pain-free, because it won’t,” Milburn said. “Candidly, it could mean that some people will get less financial support at the beginning of their benefit claim than under the current system. But actually, for young people, there’s a different debate that we’ve got to resolve, which is whether the priority is their longer-term life chances or just their immediate shorter-term finances

“I think what the current system does [is] it prioritises the latter over the former. I believe that’s the wrong choice and it needs to be the other way around

“The approach I’ve taken on this is to try to define what would give young people the best chance of building a good life, not just over a year or two, but over the course of their lifetimes.”

The changes would apply to to both existing and new claimants

In exchange for greater employment support, there would be an element of conditionality — if people did not engage with the system, they could lose some of their benefits

“A deal isn’t a deal unless there are potential consequences,” Milburn said. “Entitlements and responsibilities are two sides of the same coin.”

The plans will require “significant investment” upfront, with savings realised over a decade plus

thetimes.com/article/971613…

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Peter Bedford MP Verified account @PeterABedford · 3d

Most of us know someone on welfare who probably shouldn't be. A friend of a friend. A distant cousin. The chap a few doors down.
For too many, welfare has become a top-up for the cost of living, even "holiday money".
Only @Conservatives will tell the uncomfortable truth and defuse this financial time bomb.

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