Young people deserve legal guarantee of job or training says Alan Milburn but will lose benefits if they say no - as Labour die-hards prepare to rebel

Young people deserve a legal 'guarantee' of a job, training or employment support, Alan Milburn has said, but face losing benefits if they decline.The former Labour health secretary's review into youth unemployment is set to be published next week.The report will recommend how to curb the number of so-called Neets – 16 to 24-year-olds not in education, employment or training – which topped a million earlier this year for the first time in more than a decade.Ahead of its release on Tuesday, Mr Milburn told the BBC there should be a legal duty on the Government to ensure young people have access to a route into employment.In the interview, due to be broadcast on Sunday, Mr Milburn described the proposal as an 'opportunity guarantee'.He said: 'It should be a guarantee for a young person. Because at the moment the only guarantee they've got is a very simple thing. To get a benefit. What sort of life is that?'According to Mr Milburn, the proposal might work similarly to the way that local councils have a legal responsibility to offer accommodation or advice to the homeless, or accommodate children in care.He said previous employment schemes have been temporary, and do not go far enough to tackle the problem of young people not in education, employment or training. Young people deserve a legal 'guarantee' of a job, training or employment support, Alan Milburn (left) has said, ahead of his review being published on Tuesday The Government plans to bring forward major welfare reforms in 2027 amid efforts to reduce the number of NEETsMr Milburn added those who do not take up the initiatives could lose their benefits, telling the BBC having young people on benefits is 25 times more costly than what the spending would be on employment support.He suggested that ratio should be cut down to two to one, which would mean significant cuts to benefit spending and a substantial injection of funds into training, education or other forms of support.His comments come after Prime Minister Andy Burnham described Mr Milburn's forthcoming report as a 'watershed moment', but stopped short of committing to implementing its recommendations in full.Mr Milburn is expected to call for under-25s to no longer be able to claim the health element of universal credit (UC) or personal independence payments, moving them instead to a 'youth allowance', paid at the same level as the standard rate of UC.However, all the savings from the move would go towards an immediate drive to get youths back into the workforce. That could mean taxpayers spending an extra £6billion a year in the short term, according to think-tank Resolution Foundation.The review is central to Andy Burnham's claim the Government can rein in the runaway welfare bill 'in a Labour way'. But the PM admitted last week the reforms would require 'investment up front'. The idea of taking away benefits is already causing disquiet among Labour MPs, who killed off a previous attempt to curb welfare spending under Sir Keir Starmer. One likely rebel branded the proposals 'ludicrous'.The former Labour health secretary is expected to point to countries such as the Netherlands, Germany and Denmark which spend far more on job support measures and have lower youth unemployment rates in the review. Asked whether he would accept the politically sensitive report in full, Mr Burnham declined to provide that 'blanket assurance'.He told reporters in Dublin on Friday: 'We will have to wait until the report is published. It's a wide-ranging report, and obviously we'll set out our response next week.'But I think it's really important to see the report as quite a watershed moment I think in terms of how we think about supporting young people and supporting young people into work.'It's starting to point to a very different way of thinking about welfare and support, and moving more towards guaranteeing support for young people to move forward and get into work, rather than leaving them in a situation where they don't get the support when they need it and then end up on benefits in their 20s. Nobody wants that.'So there are big implications, but I think we'll have to wait for the report.'There's lots of detailed recommendations, so I can't give you that blanket assurance here tonight.'And speaking at the Welsh Labour conference on Saturday, Mr Burnham added: 'Next week, we will see Alan Milburn produce his report. And, as he says in his own words, he's not just talking about youth unemployment.'Sadly, we've seen a phenomenon grow post-pandemic of youth detachment, of too many young people feeling lost in their 20s and feeling there's no alternative other than benefits.'Well, we can do better for them. We are going to bring forward a vision around rethinking childhood and reimagining youth in terms of the support that we give them, it can't be right that we've stripped support away from young people as a society, as life was getting harder for them, and growing up was getting more difficult.'Lord David Blunkett said money from cuts to welfare payments should be redeployed as employment support, rather than saved, 'at least in the immediate future'.The former home secretary and key mentor to Andy Burnham said he believed the Prime Minister had a 'total will' and 'would be asking his Cabinet to sign up to getting their departments to do their bit, and that isn't going to be easy because there's a built-in inertia'.Speaking on BBC Radio 4's Today programme, he said: 'This is going to have to be completely different. And it's about transferring resource that currently goes into paying for failure, keeping youngsters at home, isolated, lonely, into actually putting the money in and the resource and the commitment in to making those jobs available.'He added that he believed the reforms would take 'a bit longer than the 11 months it took us to put the new deal for the unemployed in place', but that 'it can be done, and it's got to be done'.Lord Blunkett said: 'It's got to be a promise, not a threat. And if you're saying: 'Oh, we're all in favour of taking benefits away,' but as with the Daily Telegraph editorial yesterday, you then say: 'Don't put that money back in, save it,' then we're not going to get anywhere at all.'The money has to, at least in the immediate future, has to be put back in to stop the exponential rise in the benefits bill.'