EU referendum: Nicky Morgan issues youth warning after being heckled by furious teachers

Top Conservative Nicky Morgan will warn that an exit from the EU will hurt Britain's young people, just days after the education secretary was heckled by thousands of teachers over the government's academisation scheme. The cabinet minister will make the pro-EU speech as the campaigning ramps up ahead of the EU referendum in June.

"It's clear that, if Britain leaves Europe, it will be young people who suffer the most, left in limbo, while we struggle to find and then negotiate an alternative model. In doing so, we risk that lost generation becoming a reality. And everyone who casts their vote must understand that," Morgan will claim, according to the Press Association.

But Vote Leave, one of the groups vying for the Electoral Commission's Brexit campaign designation, branded Morgan "desperate". Robert Oxley, a spokesman for Vote Leave, argued: "The EU has not been good for young people, driving up costs and forcing down wages, while leaving a generation unemployed on the continent.

"Given the government is still borrowing a fortune, it is future generations who are footing the bill for the £350 million ($498m) we send to Brussels each week. The best thing we could do for current and future generations is to spend our money on our priorities."

Morgan's address to the British Fashion Retail Academy will come after her tough reception at the NASUWT conference. The education secretary was heckled by some of the delegates and members backed a strike-action motion over the government's controversial plan to turn all state schools in England into academies.

The Fashion Retail Academy was co-founded by billionaire Sir Philip Green in 2005. His Arcadia group, which owns Topshop and Dorothy Perkins, was reportedly fined almost £200,000, along with eight other companies, by HM Revenue and Customs in 2013 for breaching National Minimum Wage rules.