Pat McFadden | Youth Unemployment, Apprenticeships, and How AI Will Change Work

Summary

---

Jimmy’s Jobs of the Future: Pat McFadden | Youth Unemployment, Apprenticeships, and How AI Will Change Work

Date: March 25, 2026
Host: Jimmy McLoughlin (Boxlight Creative Studio)
Guest: Pat McFadden (Secretary of State for Work and Pensions)

---

Episode Overview

This episode features an in-depth conversation with Pat McFadden, Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, focusing on the crisis of youth unemployment in the UK, the evolving role of apprenticeships, and the likely impacts of artificial intelligence on the future of work. Drawing from his personal journey as well as his policy initiatives, McFadden provides both a historical and forward-looking perspective. The discussion explores practical policy responses, cultural shifts, and the essential role that early working experiences play in shaping young people's futures.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Pat McFadden’s Early Work Experiences

• First Jobs as a Shaping Force ([01:43]–[05:12])

  • Pat’s first job: Paper round in Glasgow at age 13 (£4/week), followed by night shifts in supermarkets, gardening, Edinburgh Festival jobs, and dishwashing (including at Scotland's first Mexican restaurant, Viva Mexico, after John Swinney, now First Minister).
  • Insight: Early jobs instilled a sense of independence, obligation, and pride.
  • Memorable moment: “The news agent, he kept sleeping in, so I would knock the window and he’d get up and put his teeth in while he sorted the newspapers…” – Pat McFadden [01:51]

• Family Background and Upbringing ([03:14]–[05:12])

  • Irish immigrant parents, father in building trades, mother in a children’s home.
  • Siblings worked worldwide in teaching, hospitality, housing, and other sectors.

2. Decline of the “Saturday Job” and Youth Independence

• Loss of Entry-Level Work ([09:11]–[10:31])

  • Discussion about the reduction of short-term, flexible work for young people.
  • Over half of roughly one million young “NEET”s (Not in Education, Employment or Training) have never worked.
  • “They’ve never had that sense of obligation and a little bit of pride that comes with it.” – Pat McFadden [10:19]

• Cultural and Parental Influence

  • Both Pat and Jimmy reflect on how family experiences influenced views on work and independence, not always driven by economic necessity but by a desire for autonomy.

3. The Youth Employment Crisis: Causes, Impact, and Policy Solutions

• The Policy Focus on Young People ([11:46]–[14:20])

  • 1 in 8 under-24s out of work or education; concern about long-term consequences (worse physical and mental health, lower life expectancy).
  • “If you ask anyone who works at the DWP what Pat’s priority is... I hope they know it’s young people in work.” – Pat McFadden [13:21]
  • Alarming stat: Under-25s on long-term sickness benefits (health element of Universal Credit) are now less likely to get a job than over-55s.

• Policy Innovations: Incentives for Employers ([14:20]–[16:12])

  • £3,000 hiring bonus for businesses employing a young person unemployed for 6+ months.
  • £2,000 apprenticeship bonus for SMEs hiring young apprentices; combined bonuses possible (£5,000).
  • “What I wanted to do was... bring business into this effort and conversation and say, look, let’s work on this together because it’s not in the country’s interest to have almost a million young people not engaged in any positive economic activity.” – Pat McFadden [15:26]

4. Barriers to Employment

• Costs and Minimum Wage Debates ([16:12]–[17:23])

  • Discussion of rising employment costs, including minimum wage.
  • Pat notes these trends pre-date current government and are also linked to longer-term retail decline and increased youth sickness.

• Defining a ‘Good Job’ ([19:08]–[21:38])

  • Not just sector-based, but characterized by pride, skill, and purpose.
  • Inspiring apprenticeship stories at Camel Laird Shipyard and TFL.
  • “By the end of their course, they should basically be able to take a tube train apart and put it together again with their bare hands. That is simply wonderful.” – Pat McFadden [20:11]
  • 50,000 current manufacturing vacancies—skills gap persists.

5. The Role of AI in the Future of Work

• Technological Change: Threat or Opportunity? ([22:00]–[24:38])

  • Acknowledges AI will disrupt jobs, but also create new, unforeseen roles.
  • “Technological advance is unstoppable… This technology will replace jobs, destroy some jobs, but I believe it will also create others, probably in ways that we cannot predict…” – Pat McFadden [22:29]
  • AI in GP practices and job centers frees professionals for more human interaction.

• Optimism and Adaptation

  • The UK is well-placed due to creativity and innovation.
  • Host Jimmy notes podcasting itself is an example of a tech-enabled new career path.

6. Education, Social Mobility, and Confidence

• Pat’s University Experience ([27:07]–[31:38])

  • Studied politics at Edinburgh, “fish out of water” at first as a working-class student—key for building social confidence.
  • Highlights the benefits of leaving home for university: “I think for a lot of working class kids, social confidence is an issue. It’s still an issue today.” – Pat McFadden [28:05]

• Challenges of University Fees and Local Study

  • Fewer students move for university due to costs, losing vital social development.

7. Changes in Politics and Media

• From 24-Hour News to Social Media ([32:02]–[35:23])

  • The rise of social platforms has shifted debate from dialogue to “clip farms”.
  • “There are those who would say it’s impacted parliament itself because a debate is now less of a debate and it’s more a series of individual social media clips and you don’t really get the back and forth now.” – Pat McFadden [33:29]
  • Political issues have expanded beyond economics into culture, nationalism, and identity.

• Advice to New MPs ([35:44]–[37:09])

  • Beware of social media “suck-in,” manage your time, and don't be afraid to say "no."
  • “Time management is so important to us.” – Pat McFadden [37:07]

8. Change in Government: Risk, Speed, and Reform

• Speed of Delivery and Risk Aversion ([37:09]–[39:51])
  • Modern politics: instant feedback, public impatience, bureaucratic and societal barriers.
  • Systemic challenge: “multiple points of veto” slow down major projects, not only the Civil Service at fault.

9. Youth Mental Health and Welfare Reform

• Rising Costs and Policy Response ([40:54]–[43:23])

  • Mental health spending is up, but greater awareness is a positive.
  • Cautions against automatically linking diagnosis to lifelong benefits: seek ambition and opportunity, not just entitlement.
  • “We should be more ambitious for people. We should have a more active view of this. And that's why I want to put work and opportunity into the heart of what we do.” – Pat McFadden [42:27]

• The TikTok ‘Benefit Advice’ Phenomenon ([43:23])

  • Warns that focusing on entitlements risks permanent disengagement from work/life opportunities.

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “If you sign on to long-term sickness benefits at 20 years old, there is more chance of you still being on that benefit at the age of 30 than there is of you having a steady job in the intervening ten years.” – Pat McFadden [43:41]
• “Every time we can change that story, the person is earning more and the state is spending less.” – [44:11]
• Pat on dream jobs: “If I couldn’t be Bruce Springsteen or a Celtic striker, what was I going to do?” [46:55]
• Host and guest joke about podcasting as a job that didn’t exist seven years ago—symbolic of how work evolves with technology. [24:38]
• Pat’s favorite biscuit? “Chocolate Hobnob.” [48:40]

---

Timestamps for Important Segments

• [01:43] – Pat’s first job and early working life
• [09:11] – Decline of Saturday jobs and youth inactivity
• [14:20] – Policy discussion: Employer incentives for youth hiring
• [19:08] – What makes a ‘good job’ and stories of apprenticeships
• [22:00] – AI’s impact on the future of work
• [27:07] – Overcoming imposter syndrome and social mobility
• [32:02] – Media changes and the political environment
• [35:44] – Advice for new MPs
• [40:54] – Mental health, welfare reform, and ambition
• [43:23] – Social media influencers and benefit culture
• [46:42] – Quick fire round: dream jobs, podcasts, and favorite biscuits

---

Concluding Insights

Pat McFadden makes a compelling case for renewed ambition around youth employment—highlighting the dangers of long-term disengagement, the role of meaningful incentives for businesses, and the importance of building not just skills but confidence and optimism in the next generation. The episode offers a realistic but hopeful view of how new policy, business engagement, and cultural change can meet the challenge, even in the face of ongoing technological and societal upheaval.

---

Transcript

[Commercial Narrator]

So good, so good, so good. Spring styles are at Nordstrom Rack stores now and they're up to 60% off. Stock up and save on Rag and Bone, Madewell, Vince, All Saints and more of your favorites. How did I not know Rack has Adidas? Why do we rack for the hottest? Still just so many good brands. Join the Nordy Club to unlock exclusive discounts. Shop new arrivals first and more. Plus, buy online and pick up at your favorite Rack store for free. Great brands, great prices. That's why you rack. It's crunch time at work and you need to bring wings to your workday. Visit redbull.com gettingitdone and answer a couple questions about your work style to get a Spotify customized playlist tuned to your productivity. Plus, score a can of Red Bull on us while you go from to do to done. And remember, Red Bull gives you wings. Supplies are limited. Terms apply. Visit the website for more information.

[Jimmy Carr]

Welcome to Jimmy's Jobs of the Future. Today I am joined by Pat McFadden, who is the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions. He has been at the heart of the Labour Party for decades, having worked with Tony Blair and Gordon Brown in the last Labour government. There is a jobs crisis in the UK with 1 in 8 under 24 out of work or education. It is something that we Talk about on LinkedIn all the time about what a massive challenge this is. Pat comes onto today's show to talk about some of the plans that they have got to try and fix this in terms of businesses being able to get £5,000 for potentially taking on apprentices. I hope you enjoy listening to this episode as much as I did recording it. Well, Pat, welcome to Jimmy's Jobs of the Future. We were just talking about first jobs, so let's, let's start. Let's start there. What was your first job?

[Pat McFadden]

Well, it's good to be here with you and your listeners. My first job was age 13 when I did a paper round in Gov Hill in Glasgow and I used to go down there about six o' clock in the morning before school. I was getting paid four pound a week and the news agent, he kept sleeping in, so I would knock the window and he'd get up and put his teeth in while he sorted the newspapers and I delivered them before school and then I went back there after school and, and the Glasgow evening papers, the Evening Times, and I would deliver the evening time. So I did it twice a day for, for the week and I got £4.

[Jimmy Carr]

One of the reasons I love asking a question is you clearly have very, very distinct memories of it. Like to the point where he's putting his teeth in as well. That first transaction I think of when somebody swaps time for money is fascinating, right?

[Pat McFadden]

It is, yeah. I remember getting a rise to 4 pound 50 by the time I'd left, I think, I think so. And I suppose I might be a bit old fashioned about it. This sense of obligation, independence. Yeah, that gave me a better pocket money basically at the time.

[Jimmy Carr]

What did you used to spend it on?

[Pat McFadden]

Oh God, I was 13. What a. 13 year olds, you know, spend it pop magazines and football magazines and things like that.

[Jimmy Carr]

But it always feels so much better when you've earned the, the money for it. And you were, you were one of the seven?

[Pat McFadden]

Yes.

[Jimmy Carr]

Growing up. Right. So what did your siblings go on to do, etcetera?

[Pat McFadden]

Well, my mum and dad were Irish immigrants. They came from Donegal in the 1950s. They were native Irish speakers, only learned English during the course of growing up. But when they came to Glasgow they still spoke Gaelic between themselves, but they didn't, didn't teach us Gaelic. So I know a few words but I can't speak it. They had seven children. My dad, like many Irish men of his generation, worked in the building trades on building sites. My mum worked in a local authority children's home overnight. She used to work night shift four nights a week. So she'd get the bus to the children's home to start about 10 o' clock at night and she finished breakfast time and come home and go to bed for a few hours. My older siblings, I'm the youngest, they're, they're quite international. They're over the world, all over the world and they're older than me, so they're mostly retired now. But for example, my oldest brother Danny was a school teacher. My sister Sheila, she waited tables in the Hyatt Hotel in Lake Tahoe for a long time. But then she, in her late 30s, turning 40, she went back to college trained and then became a school teacher herself. My brother Seamus in the States he went into teaching too. My brother Brian worked for Royal Mail. My sister worked in housing associations in Glasgow. My brother Huey, he works for the United States army out in Germany as a civilian because they have some bases in Germany. He's done that for a long time. So a wide variety of variety, public

[Jimmy Carr]

service sort of focus there. And so what do you think sort of drew you to the sort of the, the center of power because you, most of your jobs have been in, in politics, right? In Scottish politics. With Donald Jew and then John Smith and Tony Blair. What sort of dream?

[Pat McFadden]

I was just interested as a young person and I got a bit involved in it. I got a phone call one day from someone at the Scottish Labor Party and said, Donald Dure is looking for a researcher. I'd never met Donald Durer and he was this big, gangly guy that I'd seen on tv and he met me for a cup of tea in what was then called the North British Hotel, which is, you know, you wouldn't call it that these days. So I had a pot of tea with him. I was very nervous. I think I was just graduating. Yeah. And he offered me a gig for a few months and it really, it really went from there and I stayed involved working in politics more or less, ever since.

[Jimmy Carr]

But before that you were also saying you had a job as a dishwasher.

[Pat McFadden]

Yeah, I did lots of things after the paper round, I stacked shelves in a couple of supermarkets.

[Jimmy Carr]

Yeah.

[Pat McFadden]

When I was about 17, 18, I did night shift. I used to do it in the Co Op in Shawlands in Glasgow. One night overnight, Friday night through to Saturday morning, I did that in a couple of different supermarkets. I did job in gardening when I was a student, a couple of Edinburgh Festival jobs. I worked there. And one of the jobs I did have was as a dishwasher and I think it was Scotland's first Mexican restaurant. It was called Viva Mexico in Coburn street in Edinburgh. And I inherited the job from Scotland. Current First Minister John Swinney, who'd been doing it before that. I think he's a year or two older than me and he was giving up for some reason. I don't know if he was graduating or something, but I took over his job. So quite a political line of dishwashers in Viva Mexico.

[Jimmy Carr]

And what did you do at the Edinburgh Fringe as well? Because that must have been quite interesting.

[Pat McFadden]

Well, you know, obviously it's a big thing in the city. Every year I sold tickets for an exhibition. One summer I was an usher at the Edinburgh Jazz Festival. It creates all these short time temporary jobs and I did a couple of those over the years.

[Jimmy Carr]

Hearing Pat talk about working at the Edinburgh Fringe and his first job, washing dishes alongside the Scottish First Minister John Swinney, makes you realise how much that first step into the world of work, work matters. That brings me neatly onto one of our partners for this episode. McDonald's UK. Every year, McDonald's gives thousands of young people that first opportunity of a start. In fact, they have hired over 47,000 young people in the UK in the last year alone. And if anyone says young people can't manage responsibility, one in three McDonald's managers is under the age of 25 in the UK. It's all part of their focus, highlighting resilience and leadership in the next generation. Back to the episode repam on the Today program on Monday. You were being sort of challenged quite a lot by Amal about the, the long term challenges in the labor market. That's what you were talking about. And I didn't really feel like you got the space to sort of go into it. But one of those things I think we are lacking at the moment is a bit of the, the Saturday job. It's one of those things that sort of disappears from it. I think there's a challenge because there isn't as much sort of short term labor opportunity moments for people. Right. Is that something you sort of agree?

[Pat McFadden]

I agree, I agree. I think it's been happening for a long time. We began the discussion with talking about that sense of being able to go out with some sense of obligation, get some money.

[Jimmy Carr]

Yeah.

[Pat McFadden]

You know, I used to like when I did the night shift in the Co op and it was in those. These were all pre minimum wage days.

[Jimmy Carr]

Yeah.

[Pat McFadden]

So wages were lower for those kind of jobs. But the Co op I think I was getting sort of 20 pounds, 20 something pounds which felt like. That felt like a bit of money. And it was my own thing. And by the time, this time I'm 17, 18, I can buy my own clothes a little bit. And so I'm not really reliant on my mum. And I think it's unfortunate that that opportunity just seems to be less available than it used to be. In my job you see lots of charts and slides and we might get into some of this, but this category of people called not in education, employment or training, of whom there are about just under a million right now, it's about one in eight young people in England. Over half of them have never had a job.

[Jimmy Carr]

Yeah.

[Pat McFadden]

They've never had that sense of obligation and a little bit of pride that that comes with doing that. So I am concerned about that. Just the experience of doing it.

[Jimmy Carr]

When you say you felt it was an obligation, I mean, I might say that your dad passed away when you were 14. Yeah. Right. So you probably felt an extra kind of responsibility.

[Pat McFadden]

I don't know. There was no economic pressure on me from my mum to do this. Don't get me wrong. We were perfectly well looked after and she was still working the overnight in the night shift. So it wasn't that I had to go out for the sake of the family, but it gave me a bit of independence as a youngster. It was more like that.

[Jimmy Carr]

It's funny. So I'll tell you what my dad's line on this was to me. He was always like, he had to work. His dad died when he was 7 and he was like he had to work all the way through pretty much lots of part time jobs and so on. He was always like, no son of mine is going to have to work etc whilst at school and whatever. At 16 he rapidly changed his mind and was like, actually I think it'd be quite good for you to get a job and get that sort of independence. And I do think earning that money when it's your own, it just makes a huge kind of. It just makes a huge difference. Do you think people have become. It's not too reliant on the state but it's looking to the state to kind of help and intervene before they can assess what they do.

[Pat McFadden]

You can't tar everybody the same here. Look, most young people are still. Their lives are still some form of education then maybe some form of higher education or training then a job that is still the usual path for most young people. But there is a group here, that one in eight that I'm really concerned about and there's some things going on with graduate unemployment too which we might come on to. So I think for most people we still have a good job and career path but there's obviously a particular issue with youth inactivity, youth unemployment and youth sickness which I'm personally concerned about. And that's why in the first few months I've been in this job, if you ask anyone who works at the dwp, what, what do you think Pat's priority is? I hope they know it's young people in work. Yeah. Because that's what I've focused on, that's what I've tried to do and there's a. There's an obvious good reason to focus on young people which is if they go down the wrong path, if they end up being dependent on benefits at a young age and it becomes long term, the consequences from for them can be really bad. Worse health, worse mental health, even a likelihood of dying before their peers is what I call stickiness in the system. And the research people in the department gave me an extraordinary statistic in the run up to a speech I made a few days ago where they told me that a young person on the Health element of universal credit, which is the long term sickness element, is less likely to get a job now if they're under 25 than somebody on the same benefit if they're over 55. So there are very good rational reasons for me to focus my attention, an effort on getting young people into some kind of constructive work or training or other positive economic activity.

[Jimmy Carr]

How much of it though is a cultural issue in the sense of that, like I think, you know, a question sometimes, how much government can, can do with this, right? Like how much of it is a kind of that responsibility you mentioned earlier as well for people to, to go out and find a job, et cetera. How much of this is a cultural issue?

[Pat McFadden]

I don't know about cultural issue. I want to make it a cause and I want to make it a cause beyond government. Government can't do everything. Yeah, we can. Obviously we're responsible for lots of parts of the economic environment, but not all of it. We live in a market economy. So there's a message to business here too. And there are certain. What we did this week, or what I did this week was try to put in place some economic incentives for business to hire young people. Because every hire is a bit of a risk. You don't know what you're going to get, you don't know if it's going to work out. And so what we offered in policy terms was for a business taking on a young unemployed person. By that I mean somebody who's been on universal credit for six months or more, we'll give them £3,000 as a hiring bonus. And for a young apprentice, for a small business, small or medium sized business, we'll give them £2,000 to take on that young apprentice. And if the young apprentice has been out of work for six months, you can get the £2,000 and the £3,000. So you get £5,000. You can add these things up. Now what is the intent behind that? It is to create more youth apprenticeships, certainly and to in the marginal decision of am I going to hire somebody or who should I hire to have a financial incentive in there to hire a young person? And what I wanted to do was in a sense bring business into this effort and conversation and say, look, let's work on this together because it's not in the country's interest to have almost a million young people not engaged in any positive economic activity.

[Jimmy Carr]

What do you say to businesses that say, but you know, over the last five years national minimum wage has gone up. This government have brought them nicks and to be fair, it was the Conservatives that hiked a lot of the national minimum wage as well. Like it's become sort of almost 50% more expensive to hire somebody at the lower end with all these costs. So this only kind of equates to what was before.

[Pat McFadden]

These things are costs. Any tax, any wage is a cost of business. It's part of the calculation, but it's not the whole calculation. And I suppose maybe this sounds a bit party political, but if it was all about the last couple of years, this problem would only have appeared in the last couple of years. But that's not true. The neat numbers, it's not a pretty phrase. I don't, almost don't like using it. But the neat numbers have been going up for five years and the steepest part of the rise was actually before we came into office. So there's been something going on there. If you take retail jobs, you talked about Saturday jobs a few minutes ago. Employment in retail has been going down for 10 years.

[Jimmy Carr]

Yeah.

[Pat McFadden]

The issue of young sickness, which is a growing proportion of youth inactivity, is about 10 years old as well, when it started going up and it's really gone up a lot in the last five years. This is a post Covid thing going on. So governments have to make decisions about tax levels. We are on the minimum wage front. You know, we. On my side of the aisle, we are, we're very proud of the minimum wage. We introduced it. Lots of people said it would be a bad thing to do economically. I don't feel that's been the case over the 20, 25 years that we've had. It perhaps not surprising that we want people to be decently paid. But I understand, having said all that, that any hire is a risk. And what I'm trying to do is send a signal to business in the policies. I've announced this week that we want you to give young people a chance and we'll help you out a bit financially with these hiring incentives, either on the apprenticeship side or the regular job side.

[Jimmy Carr]

Quite often when I was in number 10 doing the business relations job, I was surprised with how many businesses would say that they had liked the minimum wage going up because it's sort of. And the minimum wage being there because it sort of taken the decision out of their hands about what they should pay people. It was just something kind of counterintuitive, you that you might not hear. Which businesses do you think are doing a good job of making good jobs? Because I'm always struck that it is Something that particularly matters on the left and the left of center is this idea of a good job is particularly important. I suppose the first question really is, how would you define a good job?

[Pat McFadden]

What is a good job? I don't think it's a sort of sectoral thing. I think it's a sense of pride in what you're doing. I mean, some of the most inspiring experiences I've had in the last few months have just been going out around the country and seeing some of the young apprentices. So to give you a couple of examples, I met young apprentices at Camel Laird shipyard in Birkenhead. They are building the first new ferry across the Mersey for 60 years and it's sitting there in the dock. That was wonderful. The apprentices at TFL have got this big Acton Works in West London where they maintain service all the tube trains. They've got fantastic apprenticeship courses where people will be trained on the brakes, on the wheels, on the different parts of the train. And the supervisor said to me, by the end of their course, they should basically be able to take a tube train apart and put it together again with their bare hands. That is simply wonderful. These are, these are great jobs. And this sense of pride and achievement among these young apprentices when they're working there is great. So I see examples all the time. I'm a West Midlands mp, I represent Wolverhampton Southeast. And although this country doesn't make as much as it used to, we make more than we think. And the story of this death of manufacturing, I think is overdone. And when I go around my constituency, we still have lots of, you know, fairly anonymous looking sheds in industrial estates around Bilston where they're doing great things. And it probably surprised some of your listeners. Maybe your listeners watch the job market more. We've got 50,000 vacancies in manufacturing right now in the country and the employers are saying to me, we just need the skills and the right people to do them. And quite often it's an older workforce and they want young people to go into these things. So I'm not saying the only good job's a manufacturing job, but I think there are really positive careers out there. And here we are, we are speaking about this in London, in the centre of the most amazing, creative, innovative city where people are doing all sorts of things.

[Jimmy Carr]

Let's talk a little bit about AI and jobs, because I often think the Labour Party was founded on the course of labor, workers, etc. Now, if some of these predictions are right about there are going to be no jobs and there is going to be no work and AI is going to take it all. What do you think that means for the future of the center left?

[Pat McFadden]

I think AI is very good for the podcast industry. I think, you know, I listen to, or not, you know, if I'm allowed to mention others. I listen to Ezra Klein talking to Jack Clark. I think it's probably also good for the consulting industry. There's loads of reports out there. I suspect there's a bit of kind of tech moonshine around about some of these predictions. I don't think anyone knows. So my basic view is technological advance is unstoppable. There's no point and sticking our heads in the sand and wishing it wasn't there. There's no doubt that this technology will replace jobs, destroy some jobs, but I believe it will also create others, probably in ways that we cannot predict and, and we don't know. And the, the only rational response for any country here is to say, well, how are we going to use this? Yeah, how can we make use of it? So a couple of examples in my sort of area of the forest, if you go to your gp now, I don't know about your particular gp, but a number of them will say, do you mind if the notes are taken by AI? To which I always say, no, that's fine. And they say that means I can focus on you as a patient. We can do a similar thing in job centers where a lot of the activity of the job coaches up until now has been speaking to somebody and then spending a while writing it up. Now, you still have to have the human element to make sure you've got your facts right and it didn't get their name wrong or stuff like that. But I think there's huge capacity for AI to enhance the human element of work. Now, I'm not Panglossian about it. I think a big technological force like this is going to be destructive as well as creative, but I think it will be both. And I think the only rational response for the UK is to grab it with both hands, to equip our people as much, much as possible with how to use it to enhance the productivity and enhance what they do at work and on the industrial policy side to try to make sure the UK is a good home for investment into it. I am on the whole optimistic about this. I mentioned creativity and innovation. That is something this country is very good at, from the music industry right through to design to a whole lot of other spheres. So whatever's in the, in the juices and the DNA in the UK, I think can be put to good use in the AI world.

[Jimmy Carr]

Yeah, I mean I did joked about podcasting, but I do talk about it here. You know, we've got five or six people like this. This couldn't have been a job seven years ago, really like. And we've been able to kind of create these things and build a kind of mini media, I wouldn't say empire, but a mini media brand town perhaps. Yeah, I think that's kind of really inspiring for people to be able to think of it like.

[Pat McFadden]

Yeah.

[Jimmy Carr]

I often ask people what they would do today if they were kind of graduating. I assume that you would say, still go into politics, right?

[Pat McFadden]

Oh, I don't know.

[Jimmy Carr]

I just wanted to say a quick thanks to Amazon for supporting this episode. Now, when we talk about jobs of the future, we often focus on the technical and the cutting edge. But actually one of the most important things that any economy needs is a strong starting point for people. That's where Amazon comes in. For thousands of people across the uk, Amazon is a genuine gateway into the workforce, offering around 30 in starting pay and benefits from day one. What's really interesting is how they're breaking down barriers too. They've created over five and a half thousand apprenticeships since 2013, a thousand of those coming in 2025 alone. They're also the UK's largest private provider of supported internships helping young people with learning disabilities into meaningful employment. Check out the Jimmy's Jobs of the Future interview we did with John Bomfrey where we went behind the scenes of an Amazon fulfillment center. Links to that episode below. I often ask people what they would do today if they were kind of graduating. I assume that you would say still go into politics, right?

[Pat McFadden]

Oh, I don't know if you had your time again, it's a great question

[Jimmy Carr]

of the age, but today. But if you were, if you were sort of graduating in the 20s, well,

[Pat McFadden]

that was still, you know, will AI replace the politicians? I don't know if it will. I never had, you know, people use this phrase, this is what brought me into politics. I've never really been able to use that phrase because it wasn't always a determined career path or, you know, pre thought set of choices. For me, often one job led to another and one thing led to another. So. But I think there's loads of things. What would I do if I was graduating today? I would be optimistic. You know, I know life's tough and you know, people are applying for lots of jobs and so on, but, you know, we're living in such a fantastic country and it is creative, it is innovative. I don't know if I'd pick exactly the same thing.

[Jimmy Carr]

But what did you, what did you study?

[Pat McFadden]

Afraid I did study politics. Yeah, A long, long time ago at Edinburgh. And, you know, it was fantastic. It really opened my eyes. Not to be too kind of a romantic about this, but these were, this was in the 1980s when working class people at universities were pretty rare. And I remember going to Edinburgh and just noticing the physical size of the people at that university at that time, especially the men, these big guys. And I was just looking at these. And that was partly. I had not mixed with people like that before, ever. So it brought me into a whole different set of social circles. And it's the untangible, unquantifiable benefit of going on to higher education or at least leaving your hometown and going somewhere else and doing something else. You just meet people you wouldn't otherwise have met. And I think for a lot of working class kids, social confidence is an issue. It's still an issue today. And you know, confidence, how can you put a price on that? So that experience of having to teach yourself you can be in a room with these people and you can, you can speak up for yourself, that doesn't always come naturally and it doesn't come instantly. I remember going to see my director of studies after a few months and saying to him, I'm not sure this is for me. You know, I feel a bit fish out of water here. And he gave me great advice. He said, listen, I've experienced this kind of conversation a couple of times before. You've only been here for two or three months. Give it, give it a year, give it to the summer. Complete your first year and I think you'll be okay.

[Jimmy Carr]

Because everyone, I think, has that sort of imposter syndrome 2, 3 months into any major job, life change and so on. Right.

[Pat McFadden]

Well, I can't speak for everyone, maybe they do, but the thing is to believe in yourself and back yourself and keep going. Which is easier said than done sometimes, but you've got to do it.

[Jimmy Carr]

How else did you develop that sort of social confidence?

[Pat McFadden]

Very slowly. It's truth. And I still, you know, in the political world look at people and think they are so confident in what they're saying, is so sure of themselves, often when they're talking complete nonsense. So I'm not sure that ever. I think it's a big thing for people from different backgrounds.

[Jimmy Carr]

I also think that the Importance that you touch on there, of going to a different place is quite important as well, to buy that confidence and get that. Get into a new place, get integrated. And so, like, I think it's a. It's an underestimated thing. It is one of the problems, I think, with university fees and I understand why people are living at home and studying at university, but I also think there is no replacement for that. You know, you've got to go there and sort of work out a new town, new city and so on.

[Pat McFadden]

It was great for me. And in Glasgow. Glasgow has this tradition, long before fees of home study. Well, they've got a different system in Scotland anyway, of course. But most kids at Glasgow schools who went to university tended to go to. They had a different application process in my day. I don't know if that still exists, where you could apply directly to Glasgow or Strathclyde University, whereas for the others you had to go through this UCAS system. But I decided, don't really know why. At age 17, 18, I'd quite like to try and leave Glasgow. Maybe it was because I had older siblings who'd traveled a bit and they'd gone around Europe backpacking and so on. And I thought I didn't go very far. I mean, I went to Edinburgh, but I'd only been to Edinburgh twice in my life.

[Jimmy Carr]

Yeah.

[Pat McFadden]

Before turning up there as a student. And once was just a couple of months before it, where I went to see David Bowie at Murrayfield Stadium and he's let's Dance tour, which ages me, but it was fantastic. He's wearing this sort of sky blue suit, remember. But I'd never really been to Edinburgh. I didn't, you know, I hadn't experienced it. And to go there, different city, different vibe.

[Jimmy Carr]

Yeah.

[Pat McFadden]

Even though it's only 40 miles, was a fantastic experience.

[Jimmy Carr]

And what do you think's changed in the 40 years of politics? Oh, that you've been in, like. And. And I guess how has the. How have the jobs changed in politics? Like, what is the. You know, what is the role of politicians and how. That's interesting, your kind of reflections on that.

[Pat McFadden]

The obvious changes on the media side are, first, you had 24 hour news. I remember I used to work at number 10 for Tony Blair way back in the day, and we'd talk about 24 hour news and say, you know, it's made everybody impatient, they want an instant answer. I mean, little did I know what was coming. And then, of course, the other big change is the social media world, which has had all sorts of impacts, most of them negative from my point of view. But that again may reflect time of life, I think the, the amplification of algorithmic driven views. So if you're leaning right, it sends you lots of right wing stuff. If you're leaning left, it sends you lots of left wing stuff. Driving attention, the demand for your attention. And where does reason and center left or center right debate stand in a world that's driven by attention? I think it's had a huge impact in a micro way. There are those who would say it's impacted parliament itself because a debate is now less of a debate and it's more a series of individual social media clips and you don't really get the back and forth now. I don't know if there's a bit of nostalgia around that, but yeah, very often we have these oral questions sessions, as you'll know where one day it'll be say health questions, another day DWP questions or whatever. Quite a lot of the MPs taking part are on all sides of the House are making social media clips really. So I think it's. There's been huge change in politics in and on subject to just finish. I think when I was growing up, politics was largely economic. Fiscal elections were tax and spend elections fought out in quite familiar laboratory territory. The big change I think has been the entrance onto the stage of other issues such as nationalism, the big concern with immigration, culture wars, all of that things that are not the economic, fiscal, tax and spend issues. On issues terms, that's been the biggest change.

[Jimmy Carr]

Do you think there'd be any advantage to going back and turning the cameras off in the House of Commons?

[Pat McFadden]

I don't think you could do that because people have got a right to. Obviously they want to see. Do you mean cameras often keeping the sound?

[Jimmy Carr]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely. So just because I, I agree it does. It seems like a bit of a clip farm.

[Pat McFadden]

It is a bit of a clip farm. Was there ever a golden age? I don't know. Is it nostalgia that makes us think there was a golden age? I would like, because there was definitely

[Jimmy Carr]

in the noughties you would often get people sort of, even at PMQS and whatever getting up and being like, well, the Prime Minister congratulate my under nines football team in my constituency for local media. So like it's. There's definitely. There's always been an element of that. But I, I do agree that there doesn't see. It seems to be almost people just getting up and treating it like a Studio at the moment.

[Pat McFadden]

Yeah, there's a lot of that and the issues are tough. You know, they need, they need debate. But I don't think we should probably get on our high horse too much about it. Social media has definitely driven it to, to be more clips. Yeah, it would be nice to have real back and forth debate. Yeah, do what we can.

[Jimmy Carr]

What is your advice for the younger mps that have just sort of entered coming up to their two year anniversary

[Pat McFadden]

now, some of it's personal, some of it is not to be sucked into this too much and think that the world is social media.

[Jimmy Carr]

Yeah.

[Pat McFadden]

Look after yourselves, have a balance, things like that, you know you are, you've got the right to say no. Yeah, that's one of the things I say to when you're a new mp, you want to say absolutely yes to everything because you, the last thing you want is people in the constituency, oh, that new mp. We invited them to that thing on Sunday and he never came. I mean, you don't want that. So you say yes to absolutely everything. I think after you've been doing it for a while, you have to temper that. Remember, it's okay to have a day with your family, it's okay to say no as well as to say yes. And on the sort of discipline side of it, a lot of people will want your time and your imprint on their cause or their thing. You have to exercise some discipline there and say, is that really what I want to use my time for? Everybody? You know, there's been a lot of discussion about money in politics, but actually the, the real precious currency that no MP can create more of is time. And time management is so important to us.

[Jimmy Carr]

What has changed in terms of government because you're one of sort of a handful of MPs, Ed Miliband, Yvette Cooper that were there in the last government as well. What has or hasn't changed about sort of government when you kind of came in last year?

[Pat McFadden]

Again, I get asked this one of variations of that one quite a lot. When I was in government last time, social media didn't really exist. Yeah, I left government in 2010, might have been in its very early stages, didn't really exist. It's massive now. And to put it at its most delicate, the international situation is somewhat more volatile and unpredictable. Those are probably the two biggest differences. And there's a notion of speed which I think is maybe a new factor in that. People are frustrated. They want results, they're quite right to want results. There is an issue of delivery and Speed and getting things done, which is a challenge to politicians. And I'm not, don't want to moan about the machine, but there's no doubt that the issue of speed is a thing in politics now.

[Jimmy Carr]

But it's also something that Keir Starmer's identified. Right. He used that rather sort of striking phrase of being in, you know, the Civil Service, being in a warm, tepid bath at times. And it was one of the things when I was there was there was always a reason not to do something. Right. Like you could always find a reason not to do something on any given day. Do you think we have become a bit too risk averse?

[Pat McFadden]

Well, I don't think it should. It's not as simple as blaming the Civil Service. That's not going to teach us anything. You'll be familiar with the book Abundance, which talks about how difficult it is to get things done, that's based in the States. But if you take for example the story of California and high speed rail, which is highlighted in the book, it's exactly the same story as the UK experience. That's not just about the Civil Service, that's the whole, the whole system of multiple points of veto in society. These are features of mature democratic societies because we do debate things and we don't just force things and there are laws to stop or make, you know, purchase a land and so on, you know, something that's not that easy to do and. But taking it all together, it does create a slowness in doing things which has become a feature because it makes things more expensive and it can create frustration and all of that. So I don't think it's just you shouldn't be up on the Civil service the way we do things as a sort of input into all this. Yeah.

[Jimmy Carr]

But I think as well, I think it can be. You can look at it as a bit of a wider. It's certainly not just the Civil Service, I think it's partly politicians but also businesses as well. I think just, you know, having a bit more ambition for the country, I suppose that's, you know, how do you separate out risk and ambition as you say, like every hire is a, is a risk and you know, all these judgment calls are. And I just feel we've, we've got very comfortable with it at times. Can I ask you one more thing on your former boss, Tony Blair came on this podcast 18 months ago and, and said that we were spending too much on mental health and that that was increasing and we couldn't carry on the way that we are with it. And that young people needed to get more aware of. There were sort of ups and downs of life. I mean, I would be interested to kind of get your reflections now that you are in that department. Right. And there is no doubt that mental health is increasing the spending on it. That's partly because we've become a lot more aware of it. I mean, that's a big change in the last 15 years as well. But just what are your kind of reflections on what the department is spending?

[Pat McFadden]

Yeah, well, it's a bigger feature of the system, there's no doubt about that. And it has been growing quite fast in recent years. The way I usually respond to this question is to say, I'm not an amateur doctor. I can't put myself in the position of a parent or a child or a young person who is coping with different conditions. And I don't seek to do so. I ask a different question, which is I don't think. I think greater awareness is a good thing. I think us treating mental health and talking about it and bringing it into the open is a good thing. But I don't think there should be an automatic link between a diagnosis of some of the conditions we've seen and a life on benefits. And that's what I'm concerned is happening. And I think that actually we need to ask a different question in the welfare system from the one that perhaps has traditionally been asked. I don't want to overstate the importance of machinery, of government things, because things move around in different ways. But one of the things that happened in Reshuffle six months ago was we transferred skills from Department for Education into Department of Working Pensions. The idea behind that was, can you bring it closer to the labor market? And so on. But it's not just about skills. I think all of this together, the different conditions that are being reported and the different things that the system is coping with, should prompt us to ask a different question, which is not just what are you entitled to, but how do we help you change your life for the better? What is it you need to change your life to change your circumstances? We talked a lot in this interview about going to different places and doing different things and moving on in your life. How can we help this generation of young people do that? And I think that should be the question that the system asks. And I think perhaps up until now, too much the question has been, fill out a form, we'll find out what you're entitled to. We will either pay you that or not. And then that's it and that's not good enough. We should be more ambitious for people. We should have a more active view of this. And that's why I want to put work and opportunity into the heart of what we do.

[Jimmy Carr]

How are you going to combat these sort of TikTok influencers that tell people, you know, this is how to claim this is how you can get the maximum?

[Pat McFadden]

Well, they would say they're just trying to tell people what they're entitled to. But my reflection on it is this. Remember those things I said about the stickiness of these benefits and the story of people's lives? We cannot just consider the system in terms of what it gives people every month. You have to consider the system in terms of the arc of people's lives. If you sign on to long term sickness benefits at 20 years old, there is more chance of you still being on that benefit at the age of 30 than there is of you having a steady job in the intervening 10 years. That should give us pause for thought. Charlie Mayfield, the former chairman of John Lewis, did a report for the government about. He called it Keep Britain Working. That was mainly about people who are already in work but might be suffering a bit of health problems as they get older. And what can employers do? He had this amazing fact in his report. He said a young person signing on to long term sickness benefits in their 20s will lose out on average about a million pounds of earnings. And by contrast, it will cost the state another million to support that person. So every time we can change that story, the person is earning more and the state is spending less. People often ask me about welfare reform. To me, that is welfare reform is changing these stories and that's why I put forward this policy package this week. Reach out to employers to reach out in particular to the small and medium sized businesses who I don't think have been able to use the apprenticeship system as much as they should and say we want to, we're sending a signal, a financial signal to help you employ more young people. Because if we can change that story in that arc earlier in life, we can make a huge difference to people.

[Jimmy Carr]

Brilliant. Well, thank you for coming on. We've got a few quick fires.

[Pat McFadden]

Okay.

[Jimmy Carr]

Will Hearts win the Scottish Premiership?

[Pat McFadden]

They might. Now, I'm a Celtic man, so of course I can't want Hearts to win Premiership, but it's the most open season for a while. But I do think Martin o' Neill is an inspirational, wonderful man and what he's done with the Celtic team and two periods this season has been absolutely Fantastic.

[Jimmy Carr]

What. What podcast you listen to?

[Pat McFadden]

I listen to Ezra Klein. That's probably the most common.

[Jimmy Carr]

He's clearly quite an influence. That's the time we brought him.

[Pat McFadden]

Yeah. I think his podcast is very interesting because he has really good guests that you want to learn from, and I think the podcast is about the guests and what they've got to say. Yeah. Others sporadically. I listen to Alistair and Rory. Sometimes I listen to. The rest is history a little bit. Really don't have massive amount of time to listen to a lot of them.

[Jimmy Carr]

What was your first aspirational job that you ever wanted to do? So in terms of dream job, when you were growing up, did you want to play for Celtic, for example?

[Pat McFadden]

Was that, well, you know, if I couldn't be Bruce Springsteen or Celtic Striker, what was I going to do? Neither of those were realistic possibilities.

[Jimmy Carr]

Neither two were they.

[Pat McFadden]

When I was 14 or 15, I used to read these James Herriot books, It shouldn't happen to a vet and things like that. I just got into these books as a teenager and I thought it'd be great to be a vet. But then that was an absurd prospect for me because I was. Probably wasn't really in the end interested in pursuing that or getting involved in the world of animals. But I remember when I was a teenage kid.

[Jimmy Carr]

Yeah, yeah.

[Pat McFadden]

Thinking that's a great job.

[Jimmy Carr]

I'll tell you what, that is a growing job as well. We haven't done a vet on the show yet, but, like the amount of pet ownership, etc. Fascinating. What was your last online order?

[Pat McFadden]

The cooker packed up recently.

[Jimmy Carr]

Okay.

[Pat McFadden]

We had to get a new cooker a couple of weeks ago, so we bought a cooker.

[Jimmy Carr]

You did that online? Where did you buy that online?

[Pat McFadden]

John Lewis.

[Jimmy Carr]

What car did you drive?

[Pat McFadden]

I drive a Mazda CX5.

[Jimmy Carr]

Oh, is that electric?

[Pat McFadden]

It's. No, it's petrol. It's 11 years old.

[Jimmy Carr]

Do you think it'll go electric?

[Pat McFadden]

One hundred and something, thousand miles in the clock. Well, there's nothing wrong with a Mazda at the moment. I've only ever owned three cars in my life.

[Jimmy Carr]

Right.

[Pat McFadden]

First one I bought for 200 quid and had it for four years. Then I had another one for many, many. I had a Saab.

[Jimmy Carr]

Oh, yeah.

[Pat McFadden]

Which I loved. I had it for like 14, 15 years or something, and I've had the Mazda for a long time. It's 11 years old. So I tend to. You tend to buy a secondhand car that's a few years old and then just keep it forever and drive it into the ground until it dies.

[Jimmy Carr]

Classic favorite biscuit.

[Pat McFadden]

Ah, Chocolate Hobnob. It's got to be very good.

[Jimmy Carr]

And the final one, what other businesses have impressed you over the last few months since doing this? You mentioned a couple earlier, but are there any more that we should look at getting on the podcast that are doing interesting things with jobs and actually,

[Pat McFadden]

I met a guy from B M the other day and they're really into this whole area of youth opportunity and he told me they'd taken on. I might have. I think these are the right numbers. They'd given 3,100 young people work experience opportunities and they'd given jobs to 1900 of them.

[Jimmy Carr]

Wow.

[Pat McFadden]

That's an amazing hit rate. I ran work experience programs in my Wolverhampton constituency twice.

[Jimmy Carr]

Yeah.

[Pat McFadden]

Signing up employers. Will you give young people four or six weeks experience? And they were really successful. We put about 500 young people through the programs. The local job center told me about 200 of them had got jobs. And some of the companies involved said, this is good because it's changed our recruitment practices. We wouldn't have had, you know, we'd have done it through CVs and interviews. And not everybody is at their best through a CV and an interview. We were talking about confidence earlier. Whereas these programs had given young people a chance, they've been able to show what they could do. Maybe they wouldn't have had the best paper qualifications. So companies that do that, what employees.

[Jimmy Carr]

Did you get involved with that?

[Pat McFadden]

Oh, we had. We had lots of them. We had some of the local manufacturing companies that I mentioned. We had a water company who did water coolers in the office. They were a huge fan of the project. Some of it was a bit in the public sector locally, but it was just, again, it was all about that chance of going to a workplace, seeing what that's involved and from the employer's point of view, maybe taking a look at a different kind of person than might have come in through some other route.

[Jimmy Carr]

Very interesting. Pat McFarlane, thanks very much for coming on Jimmy's Job of the future.

[Pat McFadden]

Thank you very much.

[Commercial Narrator]

My dad taught me a lot, including how easy it is to forget to cancel things. So I downloaded Experian, my bff, Big financial friend. Experian could help me cancel my unused subscriptions and lower my bills, saving me hundreds a year. Get started with the Experian app today. Your big financial friends to help you save smarter. Results will vary. Not all bills or subscriptions eligible. Savings not guaranteed. $631 a year. Average savings with one plus negotiations and one plus cancellations paid membership with connected payment account required. See experian.com for details. Experian.