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Labour signals welfare reform shift toward job support for claimants
The government is awaiting final recommendations this autumn from reviews led by Alan Milburn on youth worklessness and Stephen Timms on disability benefits.
UK Work and Pensions Secretary Pat McFadden said the government must move beyond what he called simply paying benefit claimants, arguing it should provide more job support, particularly for people with health conditions who could work.
In an interview with the Guardian, McFadden pointed to two government-backed reviews due to deliver final recommendations this autumn, with Labour preparing a response ahead of those findings.
The Timms review’s interim report concluded that England and Wales personal independence payment, claimed by nearly 4 million people, is not working, and called for bold changes to overhaul the program.
The Milburn review’s first phase urged a whole system reset across welfare, schools, and employers to address a rise in the number of young people out of work or education to more than a million, according to the Guardian, with McFadden saying departments are already being consulted.