Mystery of 'missing million' young people

A million young Britons have vanished from official records and disappeared into crime and the black economy, the Tories claimed today.

They are not registered as working, paying taxes or in education - yet neither are they listed as unemployed or claiming welfare benefits.

The mystery of the missing million school-leavers was revealed by shadow chancellor Oliver Letwin in a keynote speech on benefits.

He said they were evidence that attempts to create a One Nation Britain was mutating into a Three Nations society - those working, those dependent on benefits and those living outside the system.

"There are over a million people aged between 16 and 24 who are not working, not studying and not training - and not even registered unemployed," said Mr Letwin.

"No one, not even the Government, really knows who these people are. We can only help these people by making them more employable," he said. In a keynote speech designed to show the Conservatives are determined to tackle deep-seated social problems, Mr Letwin praised Chancellor Gordon Brown for attempting to make work pay through radical welfare reforms. But he said Labour's policies were making people in lowpaid jobs better off but completely dependent on the state.

At the same time, a new group of have-nots had emerged who were unable to work and therefore did not qualify for Mr Brown's in-work benefits - and others failed to make claims. "There is a third nation, the people left behind. People of working age who don't earn enough to live but who do not or cannot get the help they need from Mr Brown's social policy," Mr Letwin said.

"A good example are those officially classified as 'problem drug users' whose numbers have grown by 10,000 per year since 1997. To them we may add those engaged in other forms of criminal activity or those who have simply dropped out of mainstream society."

He said the Conservatives would publish plans to reform the welfare system before the next election.