Burnham pledges welfare changes to tackle NEET crisis as report maps childhood gaps
Andy Burnham has pledged 'big changes' to the way the welfare system works to tackle the crisis affecting young people not in employment, education or training, known as NEETs. The pledge was reported on 19 October 2026 in a Guardian live blog.
In an article for The Times in October 2026, Burnham wrote that Britain faced an "economic catastrophe and moral failure" over a generation of young people, according to BBC reporting. In the same article, he described the NEETs crisis as a 'moral failure' and said the country must invest in success rather than paying for failure through the benefits system.
Burnham also pledged to guarantee up-front support and training to tackle Britain's NEET crisis, as reported by The Independent. His Times article focused specifically on NEETs, and on young people who leave school and enter the benefits system, the system of state payments to support people on low incomes or out of work.
The intervention coincided with a report from Dame Rachel de Souza, the Children's Commissioner for England, titled The Childhood Lottery. The report studied more than 160 datasets examining children's experiences across England and found around 1 million young people aged 16 to 24 in the United Kingdom are not in employment, education or training.
The report identified Middlesbrough as the most challenging place to be a child and Cheshire East as the least challenging. It found 55% of pupils do not achieve grade 5 or better in both English and Maths GCSEs, the exams generally taken at age 16, and 12% of children said they did not feel safe in their local area.
Other findings included 1,048,965 children with active referrals to children and young people's mental health services in 2024-25, and 44% of looked after children, children in the care of the local authority, placed outside their local authority area. It found 40% of care leavers are NEETs, plus 6% with unknown activity. Total spending on youth services per teenager is £0 in four local authorities, £421 less than in the highest-spending local authority.
A final report with recommendations on NEETs from Alan Milburn was expected before the budget and is now coming next month, as reported on 19 Oct 2026.
