Vox Pop: Should school leavers be allowed to claim benefits?

YES
Helen Dent, chief executive, Family Action

For some vulnerable young people, work is a world away when they leave school.

Young carers we work with may leave school with little chance of a job when they have to organise this around their caring roles and care leavers who access our welfare grants are often living on the breadline and need help to build a stable future.

Some welfare support is crucial to disadvantaged young people to help them live independently or buy interview clothes or put food on the table. Penalising young people to pay for austerity is wrong.



NO
Tony Sewell, founder and director, Generating Genius

Tory politics is attempting to distance itself from the Liberal Democrats. But I am really concerned about groups of young people who are growing up in a culture of worklessness.

When we talk to them, their rationale for not going into further education, or becoming an apprentice or trying to find a job is that they can get more money from the state.

The question is whether welfare is getting to the young people who really need it, and are we actually incentivising young people to take on jobs?

Cameron’s statement chimes with me because I think it starts an important debate.



YES
Ian Green, chief executive, YMCA England

The benefits system should be about supporting those most in need in our community.

This cannot be based bluntly on whether someone is aged 17 or 77, but rather on a proper assessment of their needs.

The YMCA works with many young people who with the right support at an early age can go on to live independent lives – working and contributing to society, rather than facing a life of worklessness and welfare dependency.



YES
Karis Ming, 22, volunteer at youth charity Rathbone

Young people who want to support themselves and are not academic don’t want to go to college. This leaves them competing in the job market against older people, other school leavers and university students.

With a lot of them not even knowing how to compose a CV, what chances do they have of getting into work straight away?

Being able to claim benefits –which they will more than pay back in taxes later in life – will allow them access to help ?finding work.

Some teenagers are underprivileged and need their jobseekers allowance for basic needs like food, clothes and travel.
Not allowing them to claim benefits is like the government telling them they’re on their own.