580. How to Solve Britain’s Youth Unemployment Crisis

Well, there was a word he used at the end there, Rory, which was the M word, manifesto.

Uh, I mean, that was...

There, there's a lot going on in this thing.

You know, he talked there about all the ministers that he's been dealing with.

And I wonder, I just wonder...

Look, he's, he's...

Where I think he's absolutely right is this is a problem that's we've been sitting around with too long.

It's grown too big.

Something big has to happen to deal with it.

But secondly, that's why I was so interes- interested in whether he could be, whether you can do this from outside, because this is gonna require so much drive within government, across government to make it happen.

Um, it's a big, big, big, big project, this.

Yeah.

I mean, one, one of the things that's difficult as an outsider to completely understand is, and I, I wonder whether some listeners will feel this, is deciphering where the really tough, painful decisions are gonna be.

I mean, there was...

Am I right that what he's hinting at is it's basically gonna be more difficult for somebody to get an unconditional PIP, that if you have ADHD, y- you're not gonna be able to sit on this, uh, disability payment, but the whole system's gonna be changed so that...

And, and so I guess that's where the objection's gonna come from, which is that- Constituents are going to be going to their members of Parliament pretty quickly and saying, "Oi, somebody's just taken away my disability payment.

I've got a serious condition.

How the hell am I expected to work?" And I, I, you know, I saw that because I saw this when the Tories tried changes to some of the benefit systems in 2010, 2012.

I think I talked to you about it.

I had, you know, blind people coming into my surgery saying, "They've just taken away my disability payment because somebody..." And remember, it's not, you know, it's not a perfect system.

It's in the end, some- somebody, a nurse, a doctor, a contractor out there in the world meeting with a young person and deciding whether or not they're eligible, and there's a really complicated incentive system going on here, where I guess if you're the young person, you probably want the reassurance that you have a backup, that if things go wrong, people recognize that you have a disability, and therefore you're going to get some payment from the state if you don't get a job.

But at the same time, Alan's saying that that's an elephant trap.

It...

Am I right that's the elephant trap he's talking about?

Yeah, absolutely, yeah.