It is “an absolute scandal” that the number of young people not in employment, education or training is close to a million, a minister has said.

The number of so-called “neets” aged 16 to 24 remains more than 940,000, latest Office for National Statistics figures showed on Thursday, which skills minister Baroness Jacqui Smith described as “a waste of young lives”.

Speaking to the PA news agency as she visited Mulberry University Technical College (UTC) in east London, Baroness Smith said: “It’s absolutely shocking that we have young people who, at the very start of their working life are not learning, and they’re not earning.

“That is an enormous waste of talent, and really an outrage that young people are being left in that position.

“But it’s also a waste for the future of the co

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