The Benefits Budget

The Autumn Budget reflected a just-about-managing Government

The Chancellor has appeased bond markets, raising taxes by £26 billion, and kept her backbenchers happy with a £9 billion increase in welfare spending. For now. But the Budget ducks the hard decisions required to repair a Britain that three in four view as broken.

There are now almost one million young people not in education, employment or training (NEET). Rough sleeping has hit a record high, and Britain is 161,000 short of the construction workers needed to build 1.5 million homes.

While some of the announcements are welcome – apprenticeship reforms and the Youth Guarantee mark a small step in the right direction – the Government must be bolder if it is to get young people working, get Britain building, rewire our education system, or tackle the homelessness and visible breakdown in communities. Above all, it must address the welfare crisis that is stunting our economy and wasting the potential of millions.

Broken Britain cannot wait forever.