(Bloomberg) -- Keir Starmer said his Labour government would be setting out “radical reforms” in the coming week to tackle the UK’s rising outlays on benefits.
“Make no mistake, we will get to grips with the bulging benefits bill blighting our society,” the prime minister said in an op-ed in the Mail on Sunday newspaper.
Starmer’s Labour is under pressure to balance the country’s spending and boost growth after returning from over a decade out of power. The first set of indicators following its inaugural budget saw private enterprise stagnate and consumer retail spending fall.
The number of working age people who claim health-related benefits or who are not working due to long term sickness has soared in the UK since around the start of the Covid-19 pandemic.
“We are seeing a really worrying number of young people now out of work — not in education training or employment, often driven by mental health problems, but also made worse if they lack basic skills,” said Secretary of State for Work and Pensions Liz Kendall in an interview on the BBC on Sunday.
“We’ve got to solve this conundrum of poor health, poor work and not enough people being able to earn to build a better life,” she said.
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