Some parents on benefits are incentivised to discourage their kids from taking on apprenticeships.

Some parents on benefits will be given up to £4,500 a year to encourage their children to start apprenticeships, the government has said. Under plans to encourage young people into work, families will be offered a bursary to replace Universal Credit payments lost by starting jobs. The payment is expected to benefit an estimated few thousand households, who currently face losing between £17 and £330 a week if their children start apprenticeships. The Conservatives welcomed Prime Minister Andy Burnham's support for apprenticeships, but criticised his plans to fund the bursaries. The bursary will be paid for from a £30m pot, funded through the growth and skills levy, a tax on employers with annual wage bills over £3m. It followed the publication of a Social Security Advisory Committee report, external which warned of the "perverse effects" of the benefits system on young people's employment choices. It said, for example, single parents with a disabled child could lose up to £340 per week in benefits if their child started an apprenticeship, exceeding the expected apprenticeship salary of £258 per week. Because they are classed as paid employment, benefit payments are reduced to households where young people take on apprenticeships.