PM set to unveil what government calls 'biggest employment reforms in generation’ as Tories say he is not making tough calls on sickness and benefits

Good morning. Today the government is unveiling what it is calling, in the headline on its overnight press release, the “biggest employment reforms in a generation”. The reforms are intended to tackle the fact that Britain is the only major economy where the employment rate has fallen over the last five years, largely because more people are out of work due to long-term ill health. A white paper called Get Britain Working is being published later, and Liz Kendall, the work and pensions secretary, is due to make a statement in the Commons later.

In its overnight briefing, the Department for Work and Pensions has already flagged up numerous initiatives which are in the white paper. Overall, the focus seems to be more carrot than stick. “Our reforms put an end to the culture of blaming and shaming people who for too long haven’t been getting the support they need to get back to work,” Keir Starmer says. But quite a lot of key decisions have been postponed, and at this point it is hard to assess quite how significant, or effective, these meaures will turn out to be. The history of welfare reform is littered with announcements that don’t quite live up to “biggest in a generation” hype.

From the broken NHS, flatlining economy, and the millions of people left unemployed and trapped in an inactivity spiral – this government inherited a country that simply isn’t working. But today we’ve set out a plan to fix this. A plan that tackles the biggest drivers of unemployment and inactivity and gives young people their future back through real, meaningful change instead of empty rhetoric and sticking plaster politics.

We’re overhauling jobcentres to make them fit for the modern age. We’re giving young people the skills and opportunities they need to prepare them for the jobs of the future. We’re fixing the NHS so people get the treatment and mental health support they desperately need to be able to get back to work. We’re working with businesses and employers to better support people with disabilities and health conditions to stay and progress in work, and it doesn’t stop there.

This latest announcement shows that Labour are not prepared to take the tough but necessary choices to bring down the benefits bill.

There is no attempt to match the £12bn in welfare savings we promised in our manifesto. They have even dodged the difficult decisions on sickness benefits, which are needed to make the welfare system sustainable in the long term.