She also said that the Government can save public money and get more people into work if it runs job schemes with the NHS for those with severe mental health problems.
Britain was still recovering from the financial crisis the last time this many young people were not in education or work. At the peak in 2011, almost 1.25m 16 to 24-year-olds were classed as Neets. At the time, the coalition government sought to crack down on out of work benefits by reassessing claimants’ ability to work and urging people to report changes in their circumstances or risk a fraud conviction.
There are concerns that the extent of the workless crisis is unclear because of problems with the official data. The Labour Force Survey, from which employment, unemployment and inactivity estimates are compiled, has suffered from a sharp drop in the number of people responding in recent years.
Concerns about the quality of data have been raised by the Bank of England and the Office for Budget Responsibility.
Meg Hillier, the chairman of the Treasury select committee, on Thursday wrote to Sir Ian Diamond, the UK’s National Statistician, to ask when the problems will be fixed.
“We have major concerns about the UK’s ability to set monetary and fiscal policy appropriately in the absence of reliable data about the labour market,” she wrote.
