Young people ‘expected’ to engage with new work support, says McFadden

Exclusive: Work and pensions secretary echoes Andy Burnham as he announces funds to stop families in England losing benefits Young people will be expected to engage with new support to find work, Pat McFadden has said, as he announced parents receiving benefits could get £4,500 a year if their child starts an apprenticeship. Speaking to the Guardian, the work and pensions secretary echoed the comments of Andy Burnham when he suggested that access to support would be conditional on young people properly participating in the support that would be provided. To help with that, the new funds announced would stop families losing benefits when teenagers take up apprenticeships. “We have an obligation to put good support in place,” he said. “And then there is an expectation that people engage with the support.” McFadden – one of the few ministers to keep his job in the reshuffle when Burnham became prime minister – said the new bursary would compensate for a quirk in the system that could mean families lose some benefits if a teenager took up an apprenticeship. The penalty – where the family loses the child component of universal credit – is most likely to affect single pa