Following on from their proposal to stop early school leaver exemptions, and Chris Carter’s insulting and derogatary comments about “low-skilled” workers, Labour is out with a new bit of nuttiness. After enforcing the school leaving age as 16 with no exceptions, they will then raise the “education and training age” to 18. So you can’t go to work before the age of 18.
This is crazy. I finished 7th form at the age of 17 1/2, so I couldn’t have left school and gone to work for another 6 months? It would have been ok for me as I went straight to uni, so was still in “training”, but if I had wanted to take a “gap” year or just start work I wouldn’t have been allowed, even though I had completed high school.
Furthermore, what if I was sick of school by 15 (as plenty of people are) and wanted to work, what could I do? I wouldn’t just have to wait until 16, I would now have to wait until 18 before I could go and work.
And where do they expect all these well-qualified people to work? Someone has to stock the supermarket shelves, will you have to study supermarket-shelf-stocking until you are 18 before being allowed to?
Do Labour want more disgruntled, unemployed youths roaming the streets and creating chaos? Because they’re certainly going the right way about it.
Hat tip: No Minister
Samuel Dennis 
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