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FSB responds to Government’s youth jobs guarantee at Labour Party Conference in Liverpool
THE UK's leading small business membership organisation welcomes announcement, but warns details are crucial to success
At the Labour Party Conference in Liverpool, on 29 September 2025, the UK's Chancellor Rachel Reeves announced a major escalation of the Government's:- 'youth guarantee' policy, guaranteed paid work placement to any young person aged:- 18 to 21, who has been on Universal Credit, for 18 months without working or studying. Tina McKenzie, Policy Chair at the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB), is representing UK firms at the conference. She met the Prime Minister, Kier Starmer, ahead of the Chancellor's speech and yesterday chaired a roundtable on small business issues. Responding to the announcement, Tina said:- "This is a hugely important announcement, offering thousands of young people a crucial chance in life. Reprioritising spending from employment programmes which aren't working to this type of scheme is exactly the way to get much needed bang for taxpayer cash. This was a key plank of FSB's submissions on spending plans for the Department of Work and Pensions earlier this year (2025). It is a welcome commitment that, done right, will help small businesses do what they do best, provide jobs in our local communities, and help those who need it most get into work. Key to getting the details right is making sure there is a backstop offer to those who are now over 25, particularly those with health challenges, that young people out of work for health reasons are not excluded through misguided double funding rules and that small businesses are enabled to play a full role in the delivery of the scheme. We look forward to working with the Treasury to get the important details of this announcement right, and we hope it heralds a:- pro-jobs, pro-self employment, pro-business, pro-growth Budget, in 2 months' time."
In her speech, the Chancellor also announced funding to guarantee a library for all Primary Schools by the end of this parliament, the creation of a new investigations team to go after fraudulent Bounce Back Loan claimants and plans to reform public procurement to back UK suppliers by legislating for a new economic security power to help protect national security interests, creating flexibility for awarding contracts in key sectors, including shipbuilding. COMMENTS (0)
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