Mr Milburn, who served in Tony Blair’s government, told MPs that the benefits bill for young people was “escalating fast”.
He said: “The number of young people claiming a health and disability benefit has doubled in five years; that’s pretty exponential, and that’s rising faster than the rate of disability in society is being diagnosed.”
Figures from the Department for Work and Pensions show that 430,054 16 to 24-year-olds were claiming Personal Independence Payments (PIP) in January 2026, up from 240,854 in January 2021.
Mr Milburn warned that there were design failures in the benefits system that acted as a “disincentive” for young people to find work.
He said: “We have to ask of the welfare and benefit system, is it maximising their participation and is it maximising the amount of employment support that is made available to them?”
Mr Milburn told MPs: “I think sometimes we risk as a society falling into the trap of saying that somehow work is bad for people’s mental health. We know the reverse is true. Not being at work is deeply bad for people’s mental health.”
Stopping sick notes
The warning comes as the Government battles to get more people back into work. On Wednesday, it announced that GPs in England will stop issuing “sick notes” as part of NHS trials aimed at cutting the number of people signed off work because of ill health.
Sick notes, also known as fit notes, are currently issued by GPs or other healthcare professionals if a person is unwell and cannot work for more than seven days.
However, 93pc of fit notes issued in England say an employee is not fit for work and are often extended without further consultation.
Under the pilot programme, ill workers will instead be sent to occupational therapists or “social prescribers”, who will recommend exercise or job coaching to help prevent staff from falling out of the workforce.
The latest figures from the Office for National Statistics show that 2.8 million people are economically inactive because of long-term sickness.