Healey suggests Labour won’t keep manifesto pledge to end youth minimum wage gap

Britain / 30 October 2026 Swedish climate academic blocked from entering Britain ahead of Palestine Action talk 30 October 2026 Britain / 30 October 2026 Police investigate Epstein Balmoral trafficking claims 30 October 2026 Racism / 30 October 2026 Islamic Relief UK urges MPs to protect Muslims after 15% jump in hate crime 30 October 2026 Britain / 30 October 2026 More than 50,000 back inquiry into Britain’s complicity in the Gaza genocide 30 October 2026 Britain / 30 October 2026 MPs, unions and academics urge Oxford Uni college to cancel event featuring Jason Arday’s accuser 30 October 2026 Activism / 30 October 2026 Bereaved families hope Burnham will be first PM to meet them after 25 years of campaigning 30 October 2026 CHANCELLOR John Healey refused to say today whether Labour will meet its manifesto commitment to end the “discriminatory” minimum wage gap for young people.

In 2024 Labour committed to closing the gap between the adult minimum wage and pay for 18 to 20-year-olds, but in last week’s Budget, Mr Healey said that younger workers would see the same 3.9 per cent rise as older workers, leaving a £1.94 hourly difference between 18- to 20-year-olds (£11.27) and those aged 21 and over (£13.21).

Unions have strongly opposed the minimum wage gap for young workers and warned the government against breaking its pledge to equalise pay.

Asked whether Labour may break the commitment on the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg today, Mr Healey said: “There’s no question about whether or if: it’s a question of when. It’s a question of how fast. And I want to make sure that we can look hard at those trade-offs that inevitably are there between jobs and wages.

“I want to take business, I want to take trade unions with me and with the government, because together we have to get into what at the moment is a moral shame on this nation: a million youngsters written off, without any prospect of being helped into work and making a contribution to this country for the future.”

The Chancellor also said social security spending will come down under Labour and signalled there will be more “hard decisions” on cuts to public spending after the Office for Budget Responsibility warned that sickness and disability benefits could cost £100 billion a year before the end of the decade.

Green Party deputy leader Mothin Ali said: “Workers’ rights are universal or they are nothing.

“Anyone doing a day’s work needs to be paid the same rate for the same job. A young person’s rent and food bill is no less because they are young, so they need to receive the same wage.

“The Greens will introduce a £15 minimum wage for all ages and a proper youth jobs guarantee which pays and trains young people in real jobs — unlike Labour’s retro 1980s YTS version.

“Healey and [Prime Minister Andy] Burnham are now breaking a manifesto pledge to young people that even [former PM Keir] Starmer managed to keep. Labour have no respect for young people, who they seem to think are just there to provide cheap labour for the wealthy and their corporate donors.

“Of course big corporations want to pay their workers less. They made the same nonsense arguments when the minimum wage was introduced — and it had no impact at all on jobs: it just made life better and fairer for workers. It now looks like Labour is turning its back on its own achievement.”

In February TUC general secretary Paul Nowak said: “Young workers have bills to pay too — and it’s only right that they get the fair rate for the job. That’s why the government must stick to its target on scrapping pay rates based on age rather than based on the work people do.”

Mr Nowak said that the problem of young people not being in work, education or training “deserves real solutions like an ambitious jobs guarantee, ending insecure employment and driving up the number of quality apprenticeships — not more scaremongering about the minimum wage.”

GMB national officer Andy Prendergast said: “We’ve been repeatedly told that the minimum wage will lead to unemployment. That’s never happened.”