Labour are aiming to get hundreds of thousands of people off welfare and back into work as part of plans to save money from the public purse, a minister has told Sky News.
Reducing the cost of the welfare state has been a long-term goal for successive governments, with the Conservatives also looking to cut spending before being ejected from office last year.
Speaking to Sunday Morning With Trevor Phillips, Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster Pat McFadden said: “We are the Labour Party. The clue is in the name.
“We cannot be relaxed about every year, hundreds of thousands more people going on these benefits.”
The government is looking to find billions of pounds of savings as it seeks to balance the public finances – especially after committing to an increase in defence spending.
Mr McFadden said: “We do have a package of welfare changes coming.
“It will come pretty soon. This area of disability benefits is really important.
“Let me just set out for you and your viewers what is happening here: We have over nine million people of working age in the country who are not working, and some of those are earlier retirees and so on, but about 30% of those are people on long-term sickness benefits, about 2.8 million people.
“The cost of this has gone up by about £20bn in the past few years.
“Furthermore, the ‘do nothing’ trajectory, if you like, is for it to rise to over 4 million people by the end of the decade.
“That’s not fair on the people involved, and it’s not fair on the taxpayer.
“So yes, we do have to act on this to make sure that we give everyone in the country the opportunity to work.”
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It is not clear precisely when the details of the changes will be announced and then implemented.
However, the Office for Budget Responsibility is set to produce its latest outlook for the economy by 26 March, and the government is also currently updating its spending review, which will be published in June.
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Mr McFadden said: “Wait to see our proposals, but there will be changes in long-term disability benefits because we cannot sit back and let this bill grow and write people off in the way that’s happened for many years.
“We’re going to provide really important employment support: 200,000 people among the 2.8 million have said that they would work tomorrow with the right support.
“We’ve got a duty to put that support in place; that will be better for them, and it will get the bill down for the country.”
