Mel Stride repeats inaccurate claim about youth unemployment

3 March 2026

Responding to today’s Spring Forecast, Conservative shadow chancellor Sir Mel Stride MP claimed that the UK’s youth unemployment is “the highest in Europe”.

This isn’t correct. According to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development the youth unemployment rate in the UK is higher than the EU average, but several other European countries have a higher rate.

We wrote about these figures in more detail last week after Conservative shadow education secretary Laura Trott MP made a similar claim.

Sir Mel correctly claimed last week that youth unemployment was “now above the European average” and it’s likely this is what he meant to say in his speech. We’ve contacted him for comment.

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