In a stark indictment of current policy, former Labour minister Alan Milburn has condemned the UK government for spending more on out-of-work benefits for young people than on employment programmes, calling the imbalance ‘shameful’. His warning comes against a backdrop of rising digital unemployment and a fraying social contract that leaves Generation Z stranded between austerity and automation.
Milburn, chair of the Social Mobility Foundation, pointed to official figures showing that for every pound spent on youth job creation, two pounds go on benefits. The numbers paint a grim picture: 760,000 18 to 24-year-olds are not in education, employment or training (NEET), a figure that climbs each quarter. The irony is that while the government talks up ‘levelling up’ and ‘global Britain’, the domestic pipeline for young talent is clogged with debt and despair.
But the deeper issue, Milburn argues, is that the UK has lost control of its own digital destiny. ‘We are outsourcing our sovereignty to Silicon Valley and the algorithms,’ he said in a speech in London. ‘The platforms that determine job opportunities, training pathways and even welfare eligibility are built in California, not in Whitehall. That is a democratic deficit.’
His remarks tap into a growing unease about the ‘Black Mirror’ consequences of tech dependence. When an algorithm decides who gets a job interview or what training is recommended, who is accountable? The UK’s own tech sector is vibrant but dwarfed by the Big Tech behemoths. The result is a policy vacuum where the state pays the bills but private tech firms set the rules.
Consider the data: Universal Credit now relies on an automated system known as ‘The Swan’ to assess claims, but its logic is opaque. Meanwhile, job platforms like LinkedIn and Indeed have become de facto labour exchanges, yet no democratic oversight exists for their recommendation systems. ‘We are sleepwalking into a digital serfdom,’ Milburn warned, ‘where the young are datafied, scored and sorted without their consent.’
This is not just a moral failure but an economic one. A report from the Royal Society found that 70% of future jobs will require advanced digital skills, yet only 23% of young people from disadvantaged backgrounds have access to such training. The algorithms that could help bridge this gap instead widen it, trained on historical data that perpetuates bias.
Milburn’s solution is not Luddism but digital sovereignty. He calls for a ‘British Digital Spine’: a state-backed infrastructure for skills, job matching and welfare that is transparent, auditable and aligned with national values. ‘We need to reclaim the user experience of citizenship,’ he says. ‘Just as we built the NHS to ensure health for all, we must build a digital commons to ensure opportunity for all.’
This vision echoes the work of the Ada Lovelace Institute and others pushing for algorithmic accountability. But it faces fierce opposition from tech libertarians who see any regulation as an innovation killer. Yet the cost of inaction is already clear: rising NEET numbers, falling social mobility and a generation that feels betrayed by both the state and the market.
The prime minister’s spokesperson responded defensively, pointing to the new ‘Digital Skills for Life’ fund and the Youth Offer programme. But critics note that the largest employer of young people in the UK is now Amazon warehouses, where workers are tracked by AI and performance-managed by algorithms. ‘Is that the future we want?’ Milburn asks. ‘A nation of gig workers surveilled by machines, while the real wealth is siphoned offshore?’
His warning about sovereignty extends beyond tech. He argues that the UK’s reliance on foreign-owned cloud services for government data is a national security risk, and that the loss of control over digital identity threatens the very concept of citizenship. ‘If your life is stored on an American server, who truly owns you?’ he asks.
The timing is critical. The Online Safety Bill is stalled, the AI White Paper is vague, and the Treasury remains fixated on fiscal rules rather than future-proofing. As Milburn notes, ‘We are spending billions on benefits but pennies on the digital infrastructure that could make those benefits obsolete.’
The question is whether Westminster will listen before the algorithms write their own rules. For now, the young wait. And the benefits bill grows.
