Burnham pledges early intervention and ‘benefits backstop’ to tackle youth jobs crisis

Prime minister promises root-and-branch rethink' of support for young people as Milburn report advises sweeping changes to some benefits

• Andy Burnham: The crisis facing Britain's young people is politicians' fault. To fix it, we need a generational response

Andy Burnham has pledged to intervene as early as childhood to tackle youth unemployment before a watershed review, promising a root-and-branch rethink of how we support childhood in the modern world".

Burnham said the government would intervene at all the stages of life in which young people fell behind, and long before they find themselves out of work and reliant on the state", including providing more opportunities for vocational training in schools.