Harriet Dolby: We’re creating a generation that doesn’t see the point in work or can’t find a job
Equal justice apparently isn't equal anymore.
Harriet Dolby is President-Elect of the Oxford University Conservative Association, and the most recent and youngest member of the Next Gen Tories executive.
‘What do you want to be when you grow up?’ is the question my Grandmother asks annually at Christmastime in order to avoid an awkward silence. I am now almost 20, and for the past fifteen years this has been a constant inquisition, ever since those primary school lessons made us draw out who and what we wanted to be in the future.
If I now look at that class of 33 pupils, an average of four of them would not be in education, employment of training (NEET). Extrapolated out to the UK, this figure rises to 948,000, 12.8% of young people.
That is one in eight 16-24-year-olds who may never work a day in their lives.
It is easy to see that if one becomes accustomed to a life of 9-5 Come Dine with Me and Four-in-a-Bed, then it would be hard to muster the will, confidence and ever-elusive ‘soft skills’ required to hold down a job.
But of course, this comes at a huge financial cost to the state, taxpayer and personal cost to those who are NEET. According to the Minister for Employment in July 2025, there were 768,000 young people on Universal credit. If we assume that each person receives the standard rate of UC, this would sum to over £2.2bn per year; more than half of the Metropolitan Police’s budget each year. A figure that would rise even further when we consider the 383,000 young people on PIP too.
On the international stage, we are an embarrassment, with our youth unemployment (at 15-16 per cent) exceeding the OECD average (of 12 per cent), our Anglophone friends in Australia at 10 per cent and, as my teenage brother would say, we are certainly ‘mogged’ by Germany at just 7 percent. And this discrepancy is only growing with youth unemployment rising by 2 per cent to 16 per cent over just the past year.
Why are we letting this happen and what have we got wrong to get us here?
Fundamentally, Britain has seen a complete subversion of incentives, a welfare state so generous that it is almost nonsensical to work, and an employment system so litigious and so costly that it simply does not make sense for businesses to take on more staff.
Starmer’s government has only exacerbated this problem.
Entrenched in the minds of Labour ministers is seemingly the view that all business owners are Victorian industrialists, willing to sacrifice a few children’s fingers in a machine to earn more for their rapacious selves. If this is the Government’s view of the private sector, it is hardly surprising that virtue-signalling Labourites would want to stand up for the oppressed worker, squash brutal employment practices and ensure that the proletariat are fairly paid.
Yet, the utopia that this idealistic …
Equal justice apparently isn't equal anymore.
Harriet Dolby is President-Elect of the Oxford University Conservative Association, and the most recent and youngest member of the Next Gen Tories executive.
‘What do you want to be when you grow up?’ is the question my Grandmother asks annually at Christmastime in order to avoid an awkward silence. I am now almost 20, and for the past fifteen years this has been a constant inquisition, ever since those primary school lessons made us draw out who and what we wanted to be in the future.
If I now look at that class of 33 pupils, an average of four of them would not be in education, employment of training (NEET). Extrapolated out to the UK, this figure rises to 948,000, 12.8% of young people.
That is one in eight 16-24-year-olds who may never work a day in their lives.
It is easy to see that if one becomes accustomed to a life of 9-5 Come Dine with Me and Four-in-a-Bed, then it would be hard to muster the will, confidence and ever-elusive ‘soft skills’ required to hold down a job.
But of course, this comes at a huge financial cost to the state, taxpayer and personal cost to those who are NEET. According to the Minister for Employment in July 2025, there were 768,000 young people on Universal credit. If we assume that each person receives the standard rate of UC, this would sum to over £2.2bn per year; more than half of the Metropolitan Police’s budget each year. A figure that would rise even further when we consider the 383,000 young people on PIP too.
On the international stage, we are an embarrassment, with our youth unemployment (at 15-16 per cent) exceeding the OECD average (of 12 per cent), our Anglophone friends in Australia at 10 per cent and, as my teenage brother would say, we are certainly ‘mogged’ by Germany at just 7 percent. And this discrepancy is only growing with youth unemployment rising by 2 per cent to 16 per cent over just the past year.
Why are we letting this happen and what have we got wrong to get us here?
Fundamentally, Britain has seen a complete subversion of incentives, a welfare state so generous that it is almost nonsensical to work, and an employment system so litigious and so costly that it simply does not make sense for businesses to take on more staff.
Starmer’s government has only exacerbated this problem.
Entrenched in the minds of Labour ministers is seemingly the view that all business owners are Victorian industrialists, willing to sacrifice a few children’s fingers in a machine to earn more for their rapacious selves. If this is the Government’s view of the private sector, it is hardly surprising that virtue-signalling Labourites would want to stand up for the oppressed worker, squash brutal employment practices and ensure that the proletariat are fairly paid.
Yet, the utopia that this idealistic …
Harriet Dolby: We’re creating a generation that doesn’t see the point in work or can’t find a job
Equal justice apparently isn't equal anymore.
Harriet Dolby is President-Elect of the Oxford University Conservative Association, and the most recent and youngest member of the Next Gen Tories executive.
‘What do you want to be when you grow up?’ is the question my Grandmother asks annually at Christmastime in order to avoid an awkward silence. I am now almost 20, and for the past fifteen years this has been a constant inquisition, ever since those primary school lessons made us draw out who and what we wanted to be in the future.
If I now look at that class of 33 pupils, an average of four of them would not be in education, employment of training (NEET). Extrapolated out to the UK, this figure rises to 948,000, 12.8% of young people.
That is one in eight 16-24-year-olds who may never work a day in their lives.
It is easy to see that if one becomes accustomed to a life of 9-5 Come Dine with Me and Four-in-a-Bed, then it would be hard to muster the will, confidence and ever-elusive ‘soft skills’ required to hold down a job.
But of course, this comes at a huge financial cost to the state, taxpayer and personal cost to those who are NEET. According to the Minister for Employment in July 2025, there were 768,000 young people on Universal credit. If we assume that each person receives the standard rate of UC, this would sum to over £2.2bn per year; more than half of the Metropolitan Police’s budget each year. A figure that would rise even further when we consider the 383,000 young people on PIP too.
On the international stage, we are an embarrassment, with our youth unemployment (at 15-16 per cent) exceeding the OECD average (of 12 per cent), our Anglophone friends in Australia at 10 per cent and, as my teenage brother would say, we are certainly ‘mogged’ by Germany at just 7 percent. And this discrepancy is only growing with youth unemployment rising by 2 per cent to 16 per cent over just the past year.
Why are we letting this happen and what have we got wrong to get us here?
Fundamentally, Britain has seen a complete subversion of incentives, a welfare state so generous that it is almost nonsensical to work, and an employment system so litigious and so costly that it simply does not make sense for businesses to take on more staff.
Starmer’s government has only exacerbated this problem.
Entrenched in the minds of Labour ministers is seemingly the view that all business owners are Victorian industrialists, willing to sacrifice a few children’s fingers in a machine to earn more for their rapacious selves. If this is the Government’s view of the private sector, it is hardly surprising that virtue-signalling Labourites would want to stand up for the oppressed worker, squash brutal employment practices and ensure that the proletariat are fairly paid.
Yet, the utopia that this idealistic …
