Youth minimum wage part of review into unemployment among the young – Milburn

The future of the youth minimum wage is being considered in a review of why so many young people do not have jobs, according to the senior Labour figure leading it.

Alan Milburn, who served as health secretary in the Blair era, also told The Guardian that the Government will have to confront some “uncomfortable truths” if it wants to get more young people into work, including around diagnoses of mental ill health.

Mr Milburn, a social mobility expert, is leading a review on youth unemployment, as ministers seek to tackle the growing number of young people who are not in education, employment, or training (Neets).

Speaking to The Guardian, he appeared to echo criticisms made over recent weeks that the national minimum wage could be putting off businesses from hiring younger people, as the cost of doing so is too high.

The so-called national living wage for people aged 21 and over is currently £12.21, and will rise to £12.71 in April.

The national minimum wage for 18 to 20-year-olds is £10, and for under-18s it is £7.55.

These are due to rise respectively to £10.85, and £8 from April.

Labour MPs have been calling for an end to the different rates based on age, insisting the practice is discriminatory.

Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch is, however, among the Government’s critics warning against further increases to the minimum wage because “too many businesses can’t pay for it”.

Mr Milburn suggested he was willing to look at whether young people were being priced out of jobs by the minimum wage rates.

“We’ve got to look very carefully at exactly that,” he told the newspaper.

The Labour veteran added: “We’ve got to make sure, in a fragile youth labour market – and it’s been fragile for very many years – that public policy is providing the right incentives for employers to employ more young people, rather than less.”

Elsewhere in the interview, Mr Milburn indicated he wanted to address the rising number of young people claiming sickness benefits linked to mental illness.

He said: “We’ve got to be careful that just because you’ve got anxiety or depression, that automatically puts you on to the downward escalator into the world of benefits.”

Mr Milburn suggested there was a “new currency developing which says that work is bad for people’s mental health, whereas the opposite of that is true, which is good work in particular, is extremely good for people’s mental health”.

He added: “When I talk about these uncomfortable truths that the review is going to have to confront, you know, this is one of them.”

The Milburn review is due to report back in full next summer.