The government must prevent young people from falling into the benefits trap

Despite promises to be ‘tougher than the Tories’ with regards the welfare bill, shadow work and pensions secretary Rachel Reeves MP was today batting away headlines suggesting that Labour was considering plans to scrap benefits for the under-25s.

Reeves’s insistence that neither she, nor the party, support a worthwhile report from the influential, left-of-centre think tank, the IPPR, should raise concern. Not least because the IPPR raised similar points to those of the Prime Minister in his speech at this year’s party conference. In it he outlined plans for an ‘earn or learn’ scheme and recommended that young people are taken out of the welfare system altogether.

This is disappointing from a Labour Party that has committed itself to helping the one million young unemployed into work. So far, they have failed to offer any credible alternative to popular Tory welfare reforms and there is an obvious disconnect between political peacocking and coherent policy action.