How the economic contract is broken and more and more young people will only end up on the employment scrapheap - Ismail Mulla

While currently around one in eight people aged 16 to 24 in the UK are not in education, employment or training (Neet), this could rise to one in six young people by 2031 – representing 1.25 million young lives. This is a startling statistic and as Mr Milburn said this is going to lead to a lost generation.

Those of us long in the tooth may think, cynically, that it won’t have any bearing on us. But if young people are not getting into work then that is only going to prove to be a disaster for the whole of society. Who is going to contribute to keep the NHS afloat if more and more people are simply taking out of it and there are fewer and fewer people putting into it.

How are people going to be able to retire and live off a pension if there are not enough ratepayers in the future. It is a recipe for collapse.

It’s too simplistic to say that young people are feckless and lazy. The reality is that they have seen their peers have the ladder snatched from them before they’ve even had a chance to reach for the first rung.

Government policy has not helped. The bosses of more than 80 UK high street firms, including Tesco, Sainsbury’s and John Lewis, warned that firms were being priced out due to taxes and red tape.

While securing jobs is important, just as vital is the need to tackle the poverty of aspiration. In too many areas across our region young people have been conditioned to accept that they will never get beyond a certain ceiling.

Apathy is now becoming more and more widespread amongst young people. Even those with parents from supposed white collar professions will be asking ‘what’s the point?’ Children of parents who are classed as Millennials are going to be particularly susceptible to poverty of aspiration. A lot of Millennials entered the world of work under the cloud of recession. They were repeatedly told that they needed to grind away to see reward.

Got a degree? Get another. Got two degrees? Go get some more qualifications. Got all the pre-requistive qualifications? Sorry, you don’t have the relevant experience. Go and find yourself an internship, most likely unpaid.

And if they did manage to eventually clear all those hurdles, they then came out of it and faced every economic obstacle possible. Brexit, Covid, the energy crisis. It’s been one thing after the next. Are they as parents going to have the same trust in our education and economic system?

The role that parents play can never be underestimated. Just look at David Hockney. The celebrated Bradford-born artist, who sadly died last week at the age of 88, cuts an inspirational figure. That’s because people from Bradford, or indeed the wider North, are not associated with the world of high art.

However, at Bradford Grammar School his teachers did not encourage his ambition to become an artist. But with the support of his parents, he entered the local art college and the rest is history.

Imagine if Hockney’s parents had also discouraged him from pursuing something that he was clearly passionate about. The world of art would have been a far poorer place.

It would be foolish to suggest that everyone can go on to become the next Hockney. Or that every young person should be pushed into art collagen because that’s what they want.

However, the economic contract with recent generations is broken and my fear is that it will only get worse. Artificial intelligence (AI) is already threatening white collar jobs. Entire industries are about to be upturned. What then?

It isn’t just jobs in industries such as hospitality and retail that are out of reach of young people but even those careers that are seen as aspirational. Will we have enough junior positions in the legal sector for example if drafting letters and other administrative tasks are being done by AI? This will only stymie the supply of talent to these industries. And while businesses may make savings in the short to medium term, when the current crop of senior staff head off into the sunset, they will then have to find and develop talent somehow. Young people and work is challenge that both industry and government need to tackle together.