Burnham pushes sweeping rethink of support for young people
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Manchester mayor Andy Burnham says a broad review of childhood support could mean tighter benefit rules, but also much greater public investment in education and mental-health services to address deep-rooted inequality.
Manchester mayor Andy Burnham said the government is preparing a "quite radical change" in how young people are supported, framing the debate as a long-overdue challenge to a system that has left too many behind. He suggested the reforms could include tighter benefit conditions, but also expanded assistance with employment and mental health, reflecting the scale of the crisis facing a generation.
Speaking ahead of the publication of former minister Alan Milburn’s second report on youth not in work, education or training, Burnham described the effort as a "root and branch review of childhood" that would start from the early years and confront the structural failures shaping children’s lives.
Milburn’s review, due later this month, is expected to propose measures to increase job and training opportunities and to limit benefit access for those who do not engage with support programmes.
"If you leave young people in their 20s without hope, that is a dangerous thing to do," Burnham told Times Radio, adding that society has not done enough to help a generation growing up in a different world and struggling against economic and social barriers.
He noted that the first part of Milburn’s analysis, released in May, identified roughly one in eight young people – about one million – as neither working nor in training, attributing the trend to structural issues such as inequality, labour-market changes and mental-health challenges rather than any simple failure of individuals.
Burnham said the review would not focus solely on the benefits system but would examine the entire pathway from early childhood through education, arguing that support has to begin much earlier if the cycle is to be broken.
"Too many young people are not school-ready when they come to school. If they’re not ready to learn in reception class, that gap stays all the way through the school system," he said, emphasizing the need to rethink childhood support at every stage and to invest before damage becomes harder to reverse.
When asked whether some benefits might be cut, he replied that difficult decisions were necessary because "we have a million or more young people in their 20s on benefits" and that the current approach was unsustainable, though any lasting solution would have to include stronger support, not just sanctions.
In a separate interview with the BBC, Burnham said he could not specify when the overall benefits bill would start to fall, but stressed that spending on youth support would need to increase first, potentially requiring a reprioritisation of funds away from short-term fixes and toward long-term prevention.
"What will have to go up first is the spending on support for young people," he said, adding that the overall bill should eventually decrease.
Burnham indicated that the reforms could be implemented within the current parliamentary term if they are pursued in a sustainable manner, with the success of the plan depending on whether the government is willing to invest seriously in young people rather than simply punish them.