The Budget’s real labour market reform? A migration surge

In the Budget we heard plenty about welfare reform and how Conservatives believe in hard work. But in the small print, the OBR reveals it expects just 10,000 to go back to employment because of tighter conditionality on benefits: a tiny sliver of the 5.2 million on out-of-work benefits. A greater number – 75,000 – are expected back to part-time work due to greater childcare support. But the biggest number – 160,000 – are expected from something Jeremy Hunt did not mention at all: migration. This is perhaps the biggest unspoken feature of today’s Budget.

Overall, the OBR says it now assumes net migration to settle at 245,000 a year – up from 205,000 it expected only last November and 129,000 in March last year. So much for the Cameron-era pledge to cut this to ‘tens of thousands’. This has pretty significant ramifications. The UK economy is expected to grow by 1.9