Welfare bill to rise despite Labour reforms to get young people into work

The welfare bill will continue to rise despite Labour's benefits reforms, it has been revealed.

Labour's plans to get those not in employment, education, or training (Neets) back into work are expected to cost more than the savings made by benefit cuts every year until 2030.

The number of unemployed young people has been described by Andy Burnham as a "moral failure".

Ministers are expected to reveal plans for welfare reforms after Alan Milburn's review into Neets and Sir Stephen Timms' review of personal independence payments (Pip) conclude next month.

Legislation to cut the benefits bill could be laid down as early as April after consultation with Labour MPs who blocked Sir Keir Starmer's own welfare reforms, according to The Telegraph.

Around the same time, ministers will introduce a package of measures for young people, including work placements, training opportunities, apprenticeships, and further help for certain mental health conditions.

The Prime Minister has pledged his Government would provide a "clear guarantee of support".

The fiscal "scoring" of both policies would not be published until the Spending Review, The Telegraph reported, citing Whitehall sources.

It is expected that the high upfront costs of the measures for unemployed youths will exceed the planned cuts to benefits for the next two years, until 2029.

Mr Burnham, writing in The Times, vowed to bring "big changes to the way our welfare system operates".

"Benefits will become the backstop, not the starting point," he said.

"The system will no longer begin by establishing which benefits a young person is entitled to."

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He has also pledged not to make "crude" cuts to benefits after previously saying that national security "can't come at the expense of social security".

Downing Street had provisionally planned to publish the new welfare bill at the start of the next Parliament, which could begin in April.

Kemi Badenoch, speaking ahead of John Healey's first Budget, said that welfare cuts must be used to fund defence.

"We need to cut welfare to fund defence," she said. "Cutting welfare to fund defence is our next challenge."

"Andy Burnham might think that national security can't come at the expense of social security, but John Healey resigned as Defence Secretary because he could not, in good conscience, preside over a funding settlement of less than three per cent of GDP."

Mr Healey's long-awaited plan to reach a defence spending target of three per cent of GDP will also be included in The Spending Review rather than the Budget, despite the Chancellor resigning from Sir Keir's Cabinet in June.

A DWP spokesman said: "The reviews, due in the autumn, will lay the foundation for sustainable reform, and we will not pre-empt their findings.

"We're already restoring opportunity for young people through our £2.5billion youth employment package, investing record funding into employment support to help disabled people and those with long-term health conditions and rebalancing the standard and sickness rates of Universal Credit for new claimants."