Young people would be offered a guaranteed two-year job within four months of leaving education or training, under a new proposal unveiled by the Green Party.

Announcing the policy at the party’s conference in Brighton, co-deputy leader Mothin Ali said there were a million “bored, desperate and lost” young people who were out of work, training or education.

Under the proposed scheme, youngsters would be offered posts in the private sector, with the government paying half their salary.

Ali said an initial pilot scheme – rolled out in areas with the fewest job openings for young people – would create 9,000 jobs, at an overall cost of £110m.

The pilot would start in areas such as Rotherham, Ceredigion, Newcastle-under-Lyme, Broxtowe and South Staffordshire, with an ambition to roll it out nationwide.

The party said that a person not in work, education or training would cost the state an estimated £240,000 in benefits over the course of their lifetime.

It argued that its policy would reduce spending on welfare and boost tax receipts from employment.

Employers would be exempt from paying National Insurance contributions, but would have to provide in-job training, the party says.

The party is seeking to pitch the plan as more ambitious than the government’s own scheme, which subsidises six-month job placements for benefit claimants who have been looking for work for 18 months.

Ali also criticised ministers for previously suggesting youngsters refusing a role under that scheme could lose access to benefits, telling activists: “Threatening young people with cuts to Universal Credit if they don’t accept short-term work placements – that’s not a youth strategy.”

Speaking to BBC News after his speech, Ali said: “If we don’t take action now, we’re losing a generation of young people.”

The number of 16-24-year-olds who are not in employment, education or training has been rising since the Covid pandemic, with figures reaching almost one million.

A long-awaited report into the problem by former Labour minister Alan Milburn is expected to be published this autumn.

In her own speech to the conference, Ali’s fellow co-deputy leader Rachel Millward said the Greens would immediately bring both Thames Water and South East Water back into public ownership.

She argued this could be done without paying compensation to shareholders, pointing to water supply problems and a lack of new reservoirs.

Andy Burnham has promised to bring water under greater public control, but has stopped short of announcing plans to nationalise any water companies.

Millward told the conference the prime minister was “making a mistake” and his “10-year plan of gentle threats and vague notions of control is not enough”.

“We need public ownership now, and we have all the tools we need to make it happen,” she said.

South East Water said it was “focused on delivering on our commitments by investing £1.9 billion into local infrastructure and resilience over the next five years.

“We support working closely with the communities we serve and are accountable to, so that we can provide the best possible service for customers”.

Thames Water has been approached for a response.

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