He also said the Government could save public money and put more people into work if it ran job schemes with the NHS for people with serious mental health problems.

The last time so many young people were out of education and work, Britain was still recovering from the financial crisis. At its peak in 2011, almost 1.25 million people aged 16 to 24 were classified as Neets. At the time, the coalition government was trying to reduce redundancy benefits by reassessing claimants’ ability to work and encouraging people to report changes to their circumstances or risk being convicted of fraud.

There are concerns that the extent of the unemployment crisis is uncertain. Problems with official data. The Labor Force Survey, which compiles estimates of employment, unemployment and inactivity, has seen a sharp decline in the number of respondents in recent years.

Concerns about the quality of the data have been raised by the Bank of England and the Office for Budget Responsibility.

Treasury select committee chair Meg Hillier wrote to the UK’s National Statistician, Sir Ian Diamond, on Thursday to ask when the problems would be resolved.

“We have major concerns about the UK’s ability to set monetary and fiscal policy appropriately in the absence of reliable data on the labor market,” he wrote.