1m more migrants to prop up economy

BRITAIN’S worklessness crisis will deepen over the next five years even as a surge in net migration helps to drive economic growth.

The head of the UK’S tax and spending watchdog warned of a “worrying” rise in economic inactivity driven by growing numbers of people claiming to suffer from long-term sickness.

In its latest evaluation of the economy, the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) said: “The post-pandemic rise in economic inactivity is likely to prove more persistent than we previously thought.”

Meanwhile, the OBR believes that net migration – the numbers entering the

UK minus those leaving – will average 350,000 over the next five years, up from a prediction of 290,000 just a few months ago.

The OBR’S analysis came as Jeremy Hunt warned that higher growth and better living standards would not be achieved with “unlimited migration”, adding that filling vacancies with migrants when there were millions of working-age adults who are not in work was “economically and morally wrong”. He said: “Those who can work, should.”

The influx of migrants will help to drive up the total number of adults in the UK from 55 million in 2023 to 57 million by the end of the decade.

That is around a million more people than the OBR forecast in November after statisticians reviewed their popu- lation projections.

Britain is also facing a crisis in its domestic workforce. The OBR said that the number of people of working age who are neither in work nor looking for a job has climbed by 700,000 since lockdown and currently stands at a decade high of 9.3 million.

Richard Hughes, the chairman of the OBR, said: “Long-term illness is both the most common, and fastest growing, reason for being outside the labour force, accounting for one-in-three people in this group.

“These worrying trends suggest the overall labour participation rate is likely to continue to fall over the next five

speed up results for 130,000 patients every year, saving thousands of lives – “something I know would have delighted my brother Charlie, who I recently lost to cancer”.

Changes to digitise theatre processes, rather than relying on pen and paper, would mean the same number of surgeons could carry out an extra 200,000 operations a year, he said, promising to accelerate plans to bring a wealth of operational data together.

The Chancellor said the drive was part of a “landmark Public Sector Productivity Plan that restarts public service reform and changes the Treasury’s traditional approach to public spending.” The NHS Productivity Plan will not be published until the summer. The Office for Budget Responsibility’s (OBR’S) latest projections show that between 2027-28 and 2050-51 public spending – excluding debt interest – will grow at 2.2 per cent per year if the government does not take action, which is faster than projected economic growth of 1.7 per cent per year.

Today, Victoria Atkins, the Health Secretary, will set out a vision for more efficient NHS, saying changes to boost productivity will be backed by a new emphasis on prevention of ill-health, to keep more people healthy for longer.

However, Labour attacked the Government for repeatedly making promises to modernise NHS technology, which had not been kept. In 2013, as health secretary, Mr Hunt promised to make the NHS paperless within 5 years, a promise repeated by successor Matt Hancock who in 2018 vowed to “axe the fax”.

Wes Streeting, the shadow health secretary, said: “How can anyone trust the Conservatives’ promises today, when they couldn’t even axe the fax or purge the pager? We have heard it all before. The Budget showed Labour is winning the argument on change and modernisation in the NHS. We need a general election so Labour can deliver the reform the NHS needs.”

Health leaders welcomed the investment but said productivity gains would only be realised if the NHS’S “crumbling estates” were tackled.