Budget response, 15 March 2023

Responding to Chancellor Jeremy Hunt's Spring Budget of 15 March 2023, Stephen Evans, chief executive of Learning and Work Institute, said:

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15 03 2023

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There are some very welcome and substantial measures to help people back to work, including investment in childcare and better joined-up support from health and work services. However, only one in ten out-of-work disabled people and older people get help to find work each year, and the measures miss many who are not on benefits but want to work. The Government should tread carefully in changing disability benefits to avoid the risk of a postcode lottery for disabled people. Care is needed to avoid lower benefit payments for hundreds of thousands of people who leave work due to ill health but are not entitled to a Personal Independence Payment. The answer is more help and support, not just a bigger stick. The lack of new measures to work with employers on recruitment and job design is also a huge missed opportunity, while skills funding will still be £1 billion lower in 2025 than in 2010. Overall, this is a significant step forward, but there's much more to do to tackle worker shortages."