Jobless youngsters must lose benefits if they don’t take up work, says union boss

Andy Burnham should expand Labour’s guarantee of jobs for the young unemployed and then block them from benefits if they fail to take up these opportunities, an influential union chief has said. But the Prime Minister was also warned not to backtrack on Labour’s manifesto pledge to increase the minimum wage for 18-20 year-olds in line with the adult rate by 2029, amid growing suggestions it could be slowed down to tackle youth unemployment. Paul Nowak, general secretary of the Trades Union Congress (TUC), also rejected suggestions that people’s eligibility to claim benefits such as Universal Credit or the Personal Independence Payment (PIP) should be restricted to bring the welfare bill down. Shorts He told The i Paper that “arbitrary cuts” would face “fierce resistance” from Labour MPs, who already forced Burnham’s predecessor Sir Keir Starmer to U-turn on plans to trim the welfare bill. Speaking ahead of the TUC’s annual conference which starts on Sunday, he said: “It’s really important the government doesn’t repeat the mistakes that it went down with the last attempt to reform PIP and some of those benefits, where you just make arbitrary cost savings without thinking about the real impact on people, their ability to go out to work, the support that you need to to give them. “So, for my mind, the focus has got to be on giving people the opportunities and the support to get into work.” Speed up and expand youth guarantee scheme He said Burnham must instead extend the Youth Guarantee, which gives 16-24 year-olds who have been on Universal Credit for 18 months without earning or learning guaranteed paid work for six months. Nowak argued that this timeline should be sped up, with people offered work, education or training, adding: “I don’t think we want people to be out of work for 80 months before we give them intensive support to get back into work.” After doing this, conditions should be attached to stop those people getting benefits if they fail to take up the offer of jobs or training. “I think saying to people, listen, the quid pro quo for us providing a proper youth jobs guarantee in terms of giving people the opportunity to go into a proper job, training or education, is we expect you to pick that up. Young people just not going to work at all or not engaging is in nobody’s interest.” Nowak’s comments are in line with the Government’s position, with Downing Street on Wednesday saying Burnham wants benefits to be “more conditional on the opportunities we provide”. ‘Minimum wage should be increased for young people’ Nowak put unions on a potential collision course with the Government by insisting Burnham must stick to a Labour manifesto pledge to increase the minimum wage for 18-20 year-olds, currently £10.85, with the higher adult rate, which is £12.71, by 2029. Business leaders have put heavy pressure on the Government over the plan in recent months, leading to former chancellor Rachel Reeves reportedly deciding to delay the move to the 2030s. This week, the Government’s youth unemployment tsar Alan Milburn said the plan to raise the minimum wage for 18-20 year-olds should be reviewed as ministers must “make it as easy as possible” to hire young people. But Nowak said: “The commitment is to equalise those minimum wage raises over the course of the Parliament, I think that’s exactly what the government should do. “You’ve got a Low Pay Commission whose explicit job, one of its jobs, is to make sure that any rises in the minimum wage, including low youth wages, doesn’t have a negative impact on employment. ‘It’s really important the government doesn’t repeat the mistakes that it went down with the last attempt to reform PIP,’ says Nowak (Photo: Justin Tallis/AFP) “So the Government should be evidence-based on saying there’s no evidence at all that that’s a driver youth unemployment.” Raise capital gains tax Nowak also warned Burnham not to fund increases in defence spending or look to plug gaps in the public finances in the 28 October Budget by cutting spending, instead calling for tax rises on the wealthy. The TUC has called for a windfall tax on banks, which are profiting from high interest rates, to fund a cut in energy bills by introducing a social tariff. Nowak told The i Paper he also wants to see an equalisation of capital gains and income tax rates -which would effectively raise CGT – saying: “I can’t see how it is fair that someone who goes out to work day in day out pays a higher effective tax rate than a landlord or someone who generates their income through sitting back and watching the shares do well.” He said there needs to be a “grown-up conversation” in the country about social care, which Burnham has promised to fix, that might need “taxation”, while insisting public services should be protected from cuts. “I would say look at any part of our public realm, whether it’s the state of our hospitals, our schools, our prisons. “You tell me whether there’s fat to trim, and it doesn’t feel like that for the people who are reliant on those services, and it doesn’t feel like that for the people who are delivering those services.” Nowak also backed Labour MPs rebelling over Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood’s plans to make it tougher for migrants to settle in the UK, saying it was “completely unfair” to change the rules for those already in the country. He suggested a mooted concession exempting care workers from the plans on indefinite leave to remain would not be enough as “we’ve had issues with people working in the prison service, in transport”. Asked about the Government’s plans for the youth minimum wage, the Prime Minister’s political spokesman said on Wednesday: “You’ve got the manifesto commitment as it’s set out.” A Government spokesman said: “We are determined to help young people into work and deliver on our manifesto commitment to make work pay. “We remain committed to closing the gap between the adult and youth National Minimum Wage and have asked the independent Low Pay Commission to advise on how best to achieve this while protecting employment opportunities for younger workers.”