I have a piece in the new London Review of Books on Britain’s Neets crisis, a topic that has received a lot of political attention in recent weeks, with Andy Burnham’s announcements about technical and vocational education from age 14 in schools. My focus is somewhat different, though draws largely on the government’s own independent commissions of this phenomenon and the adjacent one of mental health and neurodevelopmental disorders.

What has got overlooked amidst all the discussions of school, vocational education and higher education (with the latter cast as part of the problem) is that there is a deep crisis of distress amongst young people, as the Milburn review is perfectly well aware, which is driving hundreds of thousands of people into ‘inactivity’ and which may not be easily fixed simply through offering a broader range of pathways into work, beyond university.