John Healey offers English mayors expanded apprenticeship service for young people

Chancellor John Healey announced on Monday that any mayor in England who wants to use a Local Apprenticeships Service will be able to do so, expanding a plan previously intended for a limited pilot. The proposed service would connect young people with employers, including small firms taking on a trainee for the first time. It is due to roll out from March 2027, so the announcement does not yet show how many apprenticeships it will deliver.

Speaking at Labour’s annual conference in Liverpool ahead of next month’s Budget, Healey argued that jobs and training should be central to support for young people. ‘The best thing we can offer a young person is not a benefit payment - it's a first job with training and a wage,’ he said, according to the BBC. He also called cutting welfare spending ‘more than an economic must - it's a moral duty’.

What the service would do

Under the announced plan, local teams would match young people with employers. Healey said mayors were well placed to oversee the work because they know which firms are hiring, which colleges offer training and which communities have been left behind. Opening the service to any willing English mayor broadens its proposed reach, but local participation and the number of places attributable to the expansion have not been specified.

The Treasury said the scheme would roll out across England from March 2027. The department said an extra £100 million would go into it, funded by savings from the Department for Work and Pensions. The BBC’s account did not identify the savings or set out what they might mean for other support. Nor did it provide a forecast for apprenticeships created by this particular service.

The scale of the challenge

Healey referred to about one million young people outside education, employment or training. The latest Office for National Statistics estimate puts the number of UK residents aged 16 to 24 in that category at 981,000 in April to June 2026, or 13.0% of the age group. That was 30,000 more than a year earlier and 30,000 fewer than in the preceding quarter.

Those figures describe a broad population, not a single pool of people ready to start an apprenticeship. Of the 981,000, the ONS estimated 393,000 were unemployed, meaning they were seeking work and available to start. Another 588,000 were economically inactive, meaning they were not seeking work or could not start within the period used in the official definition. The distinction affects how far an employer-matching service alone can reach.

The ONS also warns against reading too much into short-term movements in its Labour Force Survey estimates. The survey uses a household sample, and estimates for smaller groups can be especially volatile. The annual and quarterly changes therefore give context for the announcement, rather than a precise measure of whether any policy is working.

Different routes into work

An interim review of young people and work led by former minister Alan Milburn describes the group outside education, employment and training as varied. It includes young people with serious health conditions, young parents and care leavers, as well as some waiting for courses. A matching service may address one barrier to a first job, but the review’s account points to circumstances that may require other forms of support too.

The review reports that 29.6% of disabled young people were outside education, employment or training in 2024/25, compared with 8.7% of non-disabled young people. It also says about 44% of young people in the wider group do not claim out-of-work benefits, citing Resolution Foundation analysis. Healey’s argument about the benefits bill therefore concerns a wider population than those currently receiving such payments.

Healey said benefits should act as a bridge into work rather than a trap, and said the government would address young people he described as ‘signed off, written off’. The announcement, as reported, does not explain how the apprenticeship service would work for people unable to seek work or what additional help they might receive.

Budget pressure and next steps

The speech came as Healey faced pressure over public spending and borrowing costs before the Budget. He said the government’s promises would be built on ‘the rock of fiscal discipline’. Helen Miller, director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, told the BBC that meeting fiscal rules alone would not bring debt down sooner; she said reducing some benefits could be one route to doing so.

Shadow chancellor Andrew Griffith criticised Labour’s welfare approach, arguing that its MPs would not support cuts to the benefits bill. His response underscored the political dispute around Healey’s broader spending message, while the details of the newly expanded apprenticeship service remain to be tested in practice.

A final instalment of Milburn’s review, with recommendations on young people outside education, employment and training, was expected in the coming weeks, the BBC reported. Its conclusions were not yet available in that account. For the apprenticeship service, the next concrete milestones are mayoral take-up, implementation plans and evidence of places secured after the planned March 2027 rollout.