Across Crawley, I meet young people who have done everything right. They studied hard. They went to university or took training. They played by the rules. And yet too many now feel stuck, burdened by debt, struggling to find work, and wondering whether the system is working against them.
That is not good enough. Youth unemployment is now at its highest level in a decade. The 16–24 unemployment rate has climbed to 15.9 per cent. Graduate recruitment is at its lowest level on record. Too many young people are moving straight from education onto welfare rather than into work.
This is happening on Labour’s watch.
Instead of making it easier for businesses to hire, Labour have piled on a Jobs Tax, increased National Insurance, hiked the National Living Wage without supporting employers, and pushed through more red tape in their Employment Rights Bill. Even the Institute of Directors has warned that these policies have “severely dampened employer demand for labour.”
It is young people who pay the price when hiring slows down.
But there is another injustice hitting this generation: student debt.
Under the current Plan 2 system, graduates must earn around £66,000 a year just to stop their loan balance growing faster than they repay it. Think about that. You can be working full-time, paying every month, and still watch your debt rise.
That is not a fair system. It is a debt trap.
Many graduates will never fully repay what they owe. Some are left with tens of thousands of pounds hanging over them for decades. The taxpayer then writes off billions every year because the system simply does not work.
That is why the Conservatives have announced a New Deal for Young People, a serious plan to get Britain working again.
First, we will abolish real interest rates on Plan 2 student loans. Balances will never rise faster than inflation. If you are paying your loan, it should go down, not up.
Under our reforms, a doctor graduating with £80,000 of debt could save £58,000 over their lifetime. A graduate earning £50,000 with £40,000 of debt could save £26,000 and clear their loan five years sooner. That is real help for hard-working young professionals.
Second, we will expand apprenticeships with a full Apprenticeships Guarantee for 18–21-year-olds. We will lift funding caps and help 100,000 more young people into work every year. We will introduce the BRITS scheme — a £5,000 incentive for businesses that hire and train young British apprentices.
And we will launch a First Job Bonus. The first £5,000 of National Insurance paid by a young person starting their first job will go into a savings account in their name, helping them build a deposit, start saving, and get ahead.
This is about restoring aspiration.
For too long, young people have been told that more state support is the answer. But what they want is not dependency. They want opportunity. They want a good job. A fair wage. A home of their own. A future that rewards effort.
In Crawley, we are a town built on work, enterprise and ambition. From our airport to our small businesses, from our tradespeople to our graduates, this is a community that believes in getting on in life.
But if we allow youth unemployment to keep rising and student debt to keep spiralling, we risk losing a generation’s confidence.
Labour’s answer is more spending, more borrowing and more control from the centre. Our answer is different.
We believe in a stronger economy and a stronger country because you cannot have opportunity without economic strength and national stability.
And above all, we believe in young people. They are not a problem to manage. They are Britain’s future. It is time we built a system that backs them. If we want to Get Britain Working Again, we must start by giving our young people a future worth working for.
