Summary
We welcome the broad ambition set out in the Get Britain Working white paper to ensure all 18- to 21-year-olds in England have access to education, training or help to find a job or apprenticeship through localised and personalised support.
This ambition aligns with what young people have told us during research (Institute for Connected Communities and Youth Access, 2021):
- that they would like to see access to services to help apply for job, build confidence for interviews, find work placements, and support young employees with disabilities more widely available
- that they would like greater parity between youth-focused support services in small towns to those which can be found in large cities, where opportunities around training and education are greater.
However, we are concerned about the proposed changes to the benefits system for young people with health conditions, as set out in the Pathways to Work green paper, with the aim of removing ‘any potential disincentive to work’, specifically:
- Delaying young people's access to health-related benefits until the age of 22 - leaving young adults with health conditions without crucial financial support during critical transition years.
- Almost halving the value of health-related benefits for new claimants (which will by nature include all young people reaching adulthood) from £97 (in 24/25) to £50 per week (from 26/27) – reducing the value of health-related support when young people are eventually able to access it at age 22.
- Tightening the criteria to access health-related benefits and Personal Independence Payments – making it more difficult to access these benefits and reducing the number of young people who would be entitled to it, when they would eventually be able to access it at age 22.
Without an adequate safety net, these proposals risk creating a generation of young people trapped in cycles of poor health, financial insecurity, and exclusion from education and employment opportunities – and risk pushing the Government further away from its objectives of labour market participation and economic growth.
Analysis from the Learning and Work Institute (2025) estimates that the Government’s £1.8 billion package for employment support by 2029/20 will help only between 1%-3% of disabled people, who are having their benefits cut by these reforms, into work.
It will also significantly undermine the Government’s wider missions to build an NHS fit for the future and break down barriers to opportunity, with the Government's own impact assessment showing that restricting eligibility for disability benefits will push an additional 50,000 children into poverty (Department for Work and Pensions, 2025).
The Government must reverse this ‘either, or’ approach to supporting young people. Young people with health conditions should be offered financial and practical support to enable them to understand their options and potential for work and learning. Offering this support must not be contingent on cutting benefits or imposing punitive conditionality.
Recommendations:
- Maintain current health-related benefit rates for under-22s. Do not implement proposed cuts that would reduce support below current levels.
- Equalise and raise benefit rates across age groups. Remove existing age-based disparities in Universal Credit and housing support that create structural disadvantage.
- Invest in youth advice and counselling services. Ensure that every young person, including young people with health conditions, has access to high quality services providing a range of support, from mental health and wellbeing to housing and employment, all under one roof in their local community.
- Create supported transition pathways. Extend the offer of the Youth Guarantee up to age 25, and make engagement voluntary, not imposed as part of benefits conditionality.
- Take a whole government approach to addressing the needs of young people. Align long-term, cross-departmental strategies and initiatives such as the Youth Strategy, Child Poverty Strategy Youth Guarantee, 10 Year Health Plan and Young Futures Hubs to ensure coherent systems to address systemic disadvantage and provide all young people the support they need to thrive.