Minimum wage rise has made it difficult for employers to hire young people, says Alan Milburn

Good morning. For the second day in a row, the Westminster news is dominated by the thoughts of a leading Labour figure from the Tony Blair. But this time it’s an intervention commissioned, and welcomed, by Keir Starmer’s government. Alan Milburn, who has health secretary under Tony Blair, once seen as a future PM, and later chair of the Social Mobility Commisson, was asked last year to lead a review into why the number of young people not in education, employment or training (Neets) is rising. Today he is publishing his first “diagnostic” report, focusing on the causes of the problem. A second report, focusing on policy recommendations, is due in the autumn.

As Richard Partington reports, Milburn says Britain risks a 25% rise in the number of Neets, to 1.25 million by the early 2030s, without urgent government action to avoid a “lost generation”.

Milburn is publishing the full report, which runs to more than 200 pages and which is described by people who have read it as exceptionally thorough and hard-hitting, at a press conference this morning.

In the meantime, he has been giving interviews on the morning news shows. Inevitably, Milburn, who was a leading Blairite in the last Labour government (when the cabinet was factionally divided, and many ministers sided with Gordon Brown) was asked about his former boss’s essay published yesterday. Milburn did not get drawn into all the arguments in Blair’s essay, but he did say that he agreed with the former PM about the need to review some of the government policies that reduced the willingness of firms to hire young people.

In an interview on Times Radio, asked if he ageed with Blair that Labour had created a “climate of difficulty” for business to create entry-level jobs with an increase to the minimum wage and workers rights bill, Milburn replied:

Well, certainly every employer that we spoke to raised these issues as real concerns, the minimum wage. No employer really wants to be paying poverty wages to young people, that’s not what you come across.

But there is, particularly in low-margin sectors of the economy, like retail and hospitality, there is no doubt that these changes have had an impact. So that is something the government really needs to think about. If the priority is to create young people’s jobs, then it’s got to create the right conditions for employers to do so.

And, in an interview on the Today programme, Milburn was asked if he was willing to ask government to “think again” about the rise in employer national insurance, and the increase in the minimum wage. Milburn replied:

Yes, I am … Every employer that I talk to, they will say the same thing. There’s no doubt that the changes that were made a couple of years ago have had an impact on employers.

Here is the agenda for the day.

9.30am: The ONS publishes its latest figures on young people not in education, employment or trainining (Neets). It is also publishing figures on personal wellbeing.

11am: Alan Milburn holds a press conference to mark the publication of his report on young people and work.

Noon: John Swinney, Scotland’s first minister, takes questions from MSPs.

Afternoon: Keir Starmer is on a visit meeting apprentices in London, where he is expected to speak to broadcasters.

Afternoon: Andy Burnham, the mayor of Greater Manchester and Labour candidate in the Makerfield byelection, is expected to deliver a response to Tony Blair’s ‘Labour and the future’ essay.

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Key events

Pat McFadden, the work and pensisons secretary, issued this statement overnight about the Milburn report into youth unemployment.

I commissioned this report because we cannot afford to lose a generation of young people, and I welcome Alan Milburn’s vital work which lays bare the scale of the challenge and the root causes of youth unemployment we now need to confront.

We are already taking action by bringing forward the biggest youth employment reforms in a generation to create 500,000 opportunities for young people, including a youth jobs grant for businesses starting next month, more apprenticeships, and subsidised employment to help young people get a foot on the ladder.

Early intervention is also key, and that’s why we are supporting families with special educational needs, lifting over half a million children out of poverty, and improving vocational learning to give every young person the best start in life.

But we know there is more to do. I will work across government and with employers, charities and young people to drive real change, so more young people are earning or learning, not left behind. I look forward to working with Alan as he brings forward his final recommendations later this year.

Milburn suggests he favours ban on social media for under-16s

Alan Milburn signalled this morning that he favours a social media ban on children under the age of 16.

In an interview with LBC, he said he was alarmed by the number of young people who do not sleep properly because of “doomscrolling”.

He said:

This is an anxious generation for a whole variety of reasons, it’s a world of uncertainty, opportunities are lower, in the way they’re described. They’re living in the digital age.

I’ve had a small team going around the country talking to these young people, these Neet young people and they do this exercise where they ask them what time did you go to sleep last night?

2 o’clock, 3 o’clock, 4 o’clock, 5 o’clock, sometimes never. This is a generation that are doomscrolling in their bedrooms on their phones.

Asked if he favoured a social media ban for under-16s, Milburn replied:

We’ve really got to look at that. The government is looking at that. If the government hasn’t pronounced on it by the time I come to report in the autumn, I definitely will.

The government has just this week concluded a consultation on a social media ban for under-16s. Keir Starmer says there will be action, although it is not clear yet whether that will include a full ban.

More than one million young people not in education, employment or training, ONS says

Graeme Wearden

Graeme Wearden writes the Guardian’s business live blog.

The number of young people in the UK not in education, employment or training (Neets) has risen over one million, for the first time in over a decade.

The Office for National Statistics has just reported that there were 1,012,000 young people, between the ages of 16 and 24, who were ‘Neet’ in January to March 2026.

That’s an increase of 89,000 over the last year, and 55,000 more than in the previous quarter.

That’s a timely example of the growing Neets crisis, as Alan Milburn releases his report into the situation today.

There is more on this story on the business blog here.

Mitigating Mandelson risks would have been impossible, says former MI6 chief

Richard Dearlove, a former head of MI6, has said it would have been “totally impossible” for the Foreign Office to put in place mitigations to manage Peter Mandelson’s associations with senior figures in China, Russia and Israel when he was the UK’s ambassador to the US. He was speaking to the Guardian in response to our revelations yesterday about the reasons by UK Security Vetting argued that Mandelson should be refused security vetting. Paul Lewis, Pippa Crerar and Henry Dyer have the story.

In other Mandelson news, the Telegraph says that the government will publish his communications with ministers and officials while he was ambassador next week. This is the latest batch of information being released under the terms of a Commons humble address and we’ve been told there will be a huge volume of documents released. It will be the biggest government data drop since the multi-volume Chilcot report into the Iraq war.

In their story, Tony Diver and Janet Eastham also say that Mandelson advised numerous cabinet ministers on how they should do their jobs. They report:

The Telegraph understands that the disgraced peer often messaged senior Labour politicians and officials with suggestions on how to conduct official business far outside his remit as Britain’s ambassador to the US.

The messages are expected to be published next week alongside thousands of pages of material about his appointment, vetting and communications.

Whitehall sources said the advice was “mostly unsolicited” and that Lord Mandelson was not usually consulted by members of Sir Keir Starmer’s Cabinet on policy issues unless they related to the US.

This will come as no surprise to people who know Mandelson, or indeed any high-ego political figures. On his Political Currency podcast with George Osborne, Ed Balls was recently discussing Keir Starmer’s decision to appoint Gordon Brown as an adviser on international finance. Balls said Brown’s advice was always worth hearing, but he sounded sceptical about whether the appointment would change much. All prime ministers were used to getting advice from Brown on international finance, he said – whether they wanted it or not.

Britain ‘sleepwalking into a food crisis’ without urgent action, experts say

Britain is “sleepwalking into a food crisis” caused by extreme weather, inflation and the impacts of the Iran war – and the government is failing to take the threat seriously, food experts have said. Fiona Harvey has the story.

Streeting criticises Blair for wanting to leave too much power in hands of markets

Today we are expected to get Andy Burnham’s considered response to Tony Blair’s critique of Labour published yesterday. Wes Streeting, the former health secretar who, like Burnham, is also pitching to be next Labour leader, published his rebuttal in a Guardian article last night.

Here’s an extract.

Labour succeeds when it combines dynamism with fairness, wealth creation with wealth distribution, enterprise with solidarity, ambition with security. The centre-left’s task is not simply to speak the language of markets more fluently than the Conservatives. It is to ensure markets serve society rather than dominate it.

This challenge is not only domestic. The international order itself is fragmenting. The institutions built after 1945 increasingly struggle to regulate a world defined by multinational technology firms, climate pressures and resurgent authoritarianism. It remains unclear whether democracy or tyranny will define the 21st century …

The future belongs to those prepared to harness change in the service of justice. That is the real dividing line in modern politics: between those who believe the future can still be shaped democratically for the common good – and those content to leave it to markets, monopolies and fate. The answers must be new, but they must also be Labour.

And here is the full article.