Alan Milburn

Yes, so there's a stickiness and very many, not all of these young people end up in the benefit system.

About a third of them don't, which is interesting.

So we've got about 300,000 so-called hidden needs that we know very, very little about.

They're not even claiming benefits.

So we're trying to understand what is going on there.

But about 600,000 are claiming benefits.

The number of young people, 16 to 24, who are claiming health and disability benefits has doubled in the last five years.

So this is exponential.

So there's something profound going on and it's having a long-term social effect.

It has an economic effect because that's fewer people working at a time of skill shortages, lower productivity, lower levels of growth for the economy.

And it obviously has a massive fiscal effect in terms of the bill to the taxpayer.

So all of these things are reasons for deep concern.

big question then alan is what are these 300 000 people doing that how are they making money how are they surviving or if they're not making money you know how are they living doing a lot of polling and survey work amongst young people who are not in education employment and training they're pretty hard to reach but we're doing a lot of polling or survey got a small team going out of the country talking to young people who are who are neat by the way i hate that term but i'm just

I hated that when it came in and it stuck.

I know, but it's sort of just the shorthand just so people know.

I've got a small team going out talking, doing face-to-face interviews with about 400 young people trying to find out what's actually going on in your life.

How do you live?

Are you living off the bank of mum and dad?

Are you living in the house of mum and dad?

And this is, by the way, one of the repercussions of all this.