Starmer signals budget welfare squeeze to tackle ‘worklessness’

Keir Starmer indicated there would be measures aimed at pushing Britain’s long-term sick back into work at the coming budget, raising the prospect of a tighter welfare regime combined with increased support from business and the National Health Service to support people back into jobs.

“The basic proposition that you should look for work is right. People need to look for work, but they also need support,” the British prime minister said in an interview with the BBC after his speech at the Labour Party’s annual conference in Liverpool, which the broadcaster aired early Wednesday.

Tackling “worklessness” to boost productivity would be a priority for his administration, he said, confirming he was looking at measures “where businesses are supporting people back into work from long-term sickness.”

Those measures will include a crackdown on welfare fraud, including new proposals for the department for work and pensions to recover money lost to people falsely claiming benefits, the Labour Party said. Bloomberg previously reported that Labour lawmakers expect welfare cuts in the budget to be delivered by Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves on Oct. 30.

Some 2.8 million people are out of work because of sickness, around half a million more than in 2019, according to the Office for Budget Responsibility. Reducing those numbers is necessary if the government wants to prevent a soaring benefits bill. The OBR says sickness and disability payments will rise by 30 billion pounds in the next five years on current forecasts.

In a speech at the party convention on Wednesday, Health Secretary Wes Streeting will announce how the NHS will be part of the government’s mission on boosting economic growth. Special healthcare teams will be sent into areas with the highest levels of economic inactivity, to introduce ways of treating people who are out of work due to ill health much faster.

“We will take the best of the NHS to the rest of the NHS, get sick Brits back to health and back to work,” Streeting will say, according to a statement released by his office. “Our reforms are focused not only on delivering our health mission but also moving the dial on our growth mission.”