DAILY MAIL COMMENT: With more than one million young people now classed as Neets, it is time for Andy Burnham to erase the benefits mindset Labour has inflicted on Britain

Published: 19:49, 28 July 2026 | Updated: 19:49, 28 July 2026 WITH the number of young people classed as not in education, employment or training (NEETs) now exceeding a million, only a fool would underestimate the scale of the crisis. Yet, equally, it hardly takes a genius to figure out that Andy Burnham’s proposed solution appears to be coming from a completely wrong angle. No one disputes that encouraging apprenticeships and vocational training is a sensible idea. But offering further handouts to individuals already on benefits seems like a very peculiar way of going about it. On a more basic level, Mr Burnham’s ill-conceived plan fails to address the underlying issue of a generation of young people who have become used to sitting at home in front of daytime television. Given that a significant proportion claim to be suffering from depression, anxiety and various other ailments unlikely to be improved through self-isolation and a failure to contribute anything to society, this problem will not go away on its own. Writing in The Times, the Prime Minister remarked that it ‘would be easy to push the blame’ on young people themselves and also observed: ‘What’s holding them back isn’t ambition, but the skills and experience to make the most of it.’ Of course, that’s only a very small part of the story. It is largely because of measures introduced under Labour, including rises in employers’ National Insurance contributions and steep increases in the youth minimum wage, that young people are finding it difficult to get a job in the first place. Andy Burnham’s ill-conceived plan fails to address the underlying issue of a generation of young people who have become used to sitting at home in front of daytime television Nor has the wider situation been helped by a completely unsustainable system that, in some circumstances, leaves benefits claimants with more money in their pockets than people who are going out to do an honest day’s work. With depressing predictability, the Left are insisting that benefits payments are too sacred to be touched. Labour MP Kim Johnson, a member of the Socialist Campaign Group, urged the PM not to 'revive the failed politics of welfare cuts'. If Mr Burnham is to govern with any moral authority at all, he must ignore their demands and take a very sharp knife to the nation’s handouts. Trying to impress upon Britain’s young that they have options beyond drifting aimlessly into university is all very well. But an even more important lesson they need to learn is that relying on state benefits cannot be their default setting. IT IS bad enough in itself that Mr Burnham said nothing publicly about the Channel boats crisis during his first week in No 10. Given the prolonged silence, it might have been expected when he did finally speak that he would announce some new strategy to tackle the problem. But instead all he had to offer were some throwaway remarks apparently aimed at reassuring everyone that the situation is under control. The facts suggest otherwise. Some 881 migrants crossed the water from France over the course of his first seven days in office. With Home Office figures showing that each asylum claim costs £18,700, those arrivals alone add up to a bill of almost £16.5 million for British taxpayers. For his part, the PM is quick to point that the number of boats is down. But with one mega-dinghy that landed last week carrying a record 165 passengers, the frequency of the crossings might soon be academic. If only Mr Burnham could get that into his lovingly coiffed skull.