Labour Fiddles as the UK Approaches a Welfare Tipping Point

Britain’s welfare bill is out of control. Everybody knows. Even the Labour Chancellor John Healey says it is immoral and unsustainable, though he seems to balk at actually reducing it.

The current annual cost of £330 billion, already more than the entire receipts from UK income tax, is forecast to rise to £431 billion by 2031 according to the Office for Budget Responsibility.

Next week, the former Labour minister Alan Milburn will publish Labour’s long-awaited answer to the problem of young people getting diagnoses for neurodivergent ailments and ending up on benefits, sometimes for life. Labour backbenchers, who never knowingly support benefit cuts, have been waiting for this with some trepidation. They have read reports that Milburn intends to take benefits from people with conditions like ADHD and autism.

But the latest intelligence about the Milburn report has eased their anxieties. He is reportedly going to call for more up-front investments to fund new, more interventionist policies based on the systems in Germany and Denmark, where youth unemployment is lower. So benefits must go up before they can come down.