Is Labour serious about welfare reform? It hasn’t given that impression over the past year, given the flagship welfare reform bill ended up being gutted, largely because the Treasury had decided to use it as a vehicle for a load of blunt cuts, rather than the real – and very costly – business of wholesale benefits and back-to-work reforms. But the huge benefits bill and high levels of economic inactivity means the problem can’t be ignored, and so Rachel Reeves had another go at the back-to-work bit this week at Labour conference.

The problem with the Chancellor’s plans, as we discussed at a Spectator /IPPR fringe meeting today, is that they sound rather familiar. Reeves wants to give paid work to young people who have been unemployed for 18 months, with the government offering ‘some for

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