Why won’t Burnham release the Neets report?

Why has Andy Burnham delayed the publication of Alan Milburn’s review into Neets until after the Budget? The review is something the Prime Minister and his Labour colleagues cite repeatedly as evidence that they are taking the problem of youth unemployment seriously – and yet they seem not to want to take it seriously enough to actually publish the document. It’s almost as if its main purpose is to exist as a future prospect, rather than a real, physical report that would require action from ministers.

Much of politics today exists in this illusion of action trap, where the mere existence of a report, royal commission or public inquiry allows leaders to kid themselves and others that they are taking an issue seriously. They are doing nothing of the sort, and are in fact secretly hoping that when the report actually appears, or the inquiry concludes, someone else will have to take the difficult decisions that are being demanded.

Milburn has already been clear that the kind of welfare reform he is going to recommend is going to cost a lot of money upfront and take time to see both results and savings. While Burnham has consistently said that he wants to ‘invest in our young people’, he often elides that statement with the need to get savings from the welfare bill in order to fund higher defence spending. At some point, he will have to admit that the timescales of reaching 3 per cent of GDP on defence by 2030 and significant savings generated by welfare reform for young people are very different. The current proposal being considered by ministers would remove the health element of universal credit for under-25s and replace it with a package of measures, including training and mental health support. There is no suggestion that the saving from not paying the health element would cover that package of measures: indeed, if the government were to do it properly, it would cost significantly more. Given the personnel shortages in this area, the ‘mental health support’ element could quite easily end up seeing staff moving from the NHS to a job centre-style setting, meaning that there is no overall improvement in the treatment of mental health conditions, just a change to the context.

Burnham can maintain the illusion of action for a bit longer, without having to find the money in the upcoming Budget to fund the welfare reform, or work out how to staff the programmes Milburn wants. It’s entirely in keeping with the way everyone is approaching politics today – but then again, this prime minister did promise that he would be different. Maybe he’s not quite sure what that means in practice, either.