By GREG HEFFER, POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT
Published: | Updated:
Britain's benefits bill is expected to continue rising into the 2030s after Andy Burnham pledged not to make 'crude' cuts to bring down welfare spending.
The Prime Minister has described the scale of youth unemployment in the UK - with almost a million young people neither earning nor learning - as 'a moral failure'.
He has vowed action to get young people off benefits and into work and is poised to set out his plans for welfare reforms after the publication of two major reviews.
But while the PM has insisted he will 'bring the welfare budget down', he has warned against 'crude cuts' to benefits.
Ministers are said to be expecting the costs of the Government's 'back to work' programme to exceed savings from benefit cuts every year until 2030.
A package of measures to tackle youth inactivity - based on the results of a review by Labour ex-health secretary Alan Milburn - will reportedly be announced next spring.
The Prime Minister, pictured out running in Westminster this morning, has described the scale of youth unemployment in the UK as 'a moral failure'
An estimated 981,000 young people aged 16 to 24 in the UK were NEET between April and June this year, according to official figures - around one-in-eight of the age group
The number of people claiming PIP, the main disability benefit in England and Wales, has climbed to a record high with a total of 4.09m people entitled to the benefit as of July this year
This will be around the same time as Mr Burnham lays down legislation to cut the ballooning benefits bill, according to The Telegraph.
Whitehall sources told the newspaper the fiscal 'scoring' of both policies would not be published until Chancellor John Healey's spending review, which will take place next summer at the earliest.
It is expected to show the high upfront costs of Mr Milburn's measures will exceed planned cuts to benefits for the next two years, until 2029.
But ministers hope they will see overall savings from welfare reforms from around 2030, when employment support measures may have increased the number of young people in work.
Downing Street is said to have provisionally planned to publish new welfare legislation at the start of the next parliamentary session, which could begin in April.
Mr Burnham this week said the Government has a 'duty to do everything in its power' to make sure people who can work are in employment.
'We face a choice. We either invest in the success of our young people or pay for failure through the benefits system,' he added. 'We cannot afford to do both. I choose the first.'
Mr Milburn's report is expected to be published next month, while a separate review of Personal Independence Payment (PIP) from social security minister Stephen Timms is also due in the coming weeks.
The number of people claiming PIP, the main disability benefit in England and Wales, has climbed to a record high with a total of 4.09 million people entitled to the benefit as of July this year.
Keir Starmer, Mr Burnham's predecessor as PM, had attempted to slash the benefits bill by restricting access to PIP but saw his plans derailed by a major rebellion among Labour MPs.
A spokesman for the Department for Work and Pensions said: 'The reviews, due in the autumn, will lay the foundation for sustainable reform, and we will not pre-empt their findings.
'We're already restoring opportunity for young people through our £2.5billion youth employment package, investing record funding into employment support to help disabled people and those with long-term health conditions and rebalancing the standard and sickness rates of Universal Credit for new claimants.'