David Cameron will pledge on Monday to end youth unemployment in the next parliament when he says a future Conservative government would use £1bn in welfare spending cuts to fund 3m new apprenticeships.
A plan by the prime minister to reduce the welfare cap from £26,000 to £23,000 and the removal of housing benefit from 18- to 21-year-olds on jobseeker’s allowance will raise £255m a year, which will be used to fund the apprenticeships.
The reduction in the welfare cap will have an impact on an estimated 70,000 households, with 40,000 hit for the first time according to figures released by the Conservative party to the Press Association.
Up to 30,000 young people will be hit by the removal of housing benefit from those aged from 18 to 21 who will see their jobseeker’s allowance replaced by an allowance limited to six months. Claimants who fail to find a job or an apprenticeship after six months will be forced to perform community work.
Cameron announced the spending cuts at the Tory conference. But on Monday he will give details of how he will use the savings to fund apprenticeships.
He will say: “Because of difficult decisions we will make on welfare, we will deliver 3m apprenticeships by 2020. This is a crucial part of our long-term economic plan to secure a better future for Britain.
“It will help give us the skills to compete with the rest of the world. And it will mean more hope, more opportunity, and more security for our young people, helping them get on in life and make something of themselves.
“We have already doubled apprenticeships this parliament. We will finish the job in the next and end youth unemployment.”
The prime minister outlined his plan to lower the benefit cap and to remove housing benefit from childless 18- to 21 year olds at the Tory conference. But the announcement was overshadowed by the defection of Mark Reckless to Ukip and the resignation of Brooks Newmark as civil society minister.
Cameron told the Andrew Marr Show at the Tory conference of the benefit cap: “All the evidence is the cap is too loose, particularly in some parts of the country, so bringing it down saves money, will mean more families getting into work, and what I want to see – the plan we have for Britain – is to spend less money on welfare and more on helping people into work.”
