OBR: working-age sickness and disability benefit spending to increase by further £17.8 billion by 2030/31

Jobless claimants with no requirement to work up 940,000 since May 2024, CSJ analysis reveals in crisis of millions "written off"

Joe Shalam, Policy Director at the Centre for Social Justice, said:

“Loading yet more taxes onto the British public like a game of buckaroo is not the same as doing the hard work to repair broken Britain.

“One million young people are not in a job or training, five million have been written off as unable to work at all, and children growing up without seeing a parent go out to work in the morning is rising at the fastest rate on record.

“A government with a majority of 169 has set out a Budget penned by its backbenchers. But throwing money at the problem, paid for by a squeeze on the workers and savers of middle England, will eventually cause a kick.

“We welcome extra apprenticeships but ministers must urgently return to proper welfare reform to rescue the nation’s creaking bank balance and, more importantly, the lives of millions who have been thrown on the scrapheap. There is no time to lose.”