Young people ‘should do National Service or lose benefits'
John Allan said the Government should exercise a 'bit of coercion' to get young people into the workforce as the number of people aged between 16 and 24 who are not in education, employment or training (Neet) soars.
Mr Allan, who was also served as the chairman of Barratt Developments, one of Britain's biggest homebuilders, told Times Radio that Neets should be pushed to do military training or municipal work.
Mr Allan said: 'You could make some benefit payments conditional, particularly in that age group on people really seeking work.
'You could find work for people to do municipal work.
'I think getting people into the habit of getting out of bed in the morning, going and doing some useful work is very habit-forming once people have done it for a while.
'Or we could reintroduce military training for people who are not working. That would be a way of actually helping us with, you know, stepping up our defence capability as well, which is another important issue.'
It comes as Liz Kendall, the Work and Pensions Secretary, has drawn up plans to save £5bn from a benefits crackdown as the Chancellor scrambles to balance the books in her Spring Statement on Wednesday.
The number of 16 to 24-year-olds who are classed at Neets has surged by nearly a quarter since the pandemic began and now totals nearly 1m – the highest level since records began in 2013.
However, Mr Allan said the older generation's negative view of younger people and their work ethic was 'misjudged'.
He added: 'I think there's no reason to believe that the generation that are currently in that sort of Neets group are any less prepared to work, provided they're given the training and given the opportunities.
'And perhaps given not just a bit of encouragement, but a bit of coercion to actually get started.'
Mr Allan also called for 'urgent, accelerated training programmes' to help tackle a worker shortage in the construction industry as the Government presses ahead with its manifesto pledge to build 1.5m homes over this parliament.
He said: 'The Government are committed to building 1.5m homes ... The next challenge will be finding the people to actually build the houses.
'The Polish plumbers are not coming back. They're doing very nicely in Poland at the moment. We need to train our own.'
Mr Allan stepped down from his role at Tesco after eight years as chairman in 2023, following allegations over his behaviour towards women. Mr Allan strongly denied three of the four misconduct claims against him.
There are more than 35,000 vacancies in the construction sector, according to official figures. More than half cannot be filled because applicants do not have the necessary skills – the highest rate of any sector.
Rachel Reeves announced £600m in new investment on Sunday to train up to 60,000 new skilled construction workers by 2029.
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