Taxpayers Get No Relief
Unemployed parents of children who choose to begin vocational training will receive up to £4,500 a year. That is the good news. Now for the bad news: they stand to lose up to £330 a week in welfare payments. The public has drawn attention to this obvious contradiction in the government's plans to encourage youth employment.According to official figures, more than one million people aged 16 to 24 are currently neither working nor studying, accounting for 13.5% of everyone in that age group. At the same time, if one of these young people decides to take up a paid apprenticeship while their parents are unemployed, those parents will lose up to £330 a week in benefits. Andy Burnham's government has proposed addressing the issue by paying such families up to £4,500 a year in compensation. However, simple arithmetic shows that the loss of weekly unemployment benefits could amount to £17,000 a year. Faced with that choice, unemployed parents are unlikely to hesitate.
No Help for Working Families
A number of social media users have pointed out that this employment incentive is, to say the least, questionable.
Some politicians share the same view. The Daily Mail quotes former Conservative Work and Pensions Secretary Sir Iain Duncan Smith, who said: “If there is a problem with apprenticeships struggling to compete with the benefits system then the benefits should be cut. Paying bursaries on top is piling payments on payments – it just complicates a system that is already a mess”.
Many commentators also point out that working parents are not entitled to such support, even though it is their taxes that fund welfare payments.
No Savings in Sight
Some commentators have also noted that the decision to introduce new welfare payments is at odds with the new prime minister's promises to reduce public spending.
Preliminary estimates suggest the programme will require around £30 million a year in funding. At the same time, Burnham's government has claimed that its new youth employment initiative will come at no additional cost.
“It is spending money already committed elsewhere. So, either it is another unfunded announcement, or Andy Burnham is not being straight with us about his plans,” Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary Helen Whately told the BBC. Burnham has previously promised to scrap VAT on household electricity bills by cancelling the digital ID programme, even though that programme itself had never actually been funded.