New Office for National Statistics figures show that 252,000 children in the UK live in households where no one has ever worked, the highest total in 13 years. This matters because it highlights growing concern over entrenched worklessness at a time when the government is under pressure over welfare policy and a sluggish jobs market, with the figures covering the period after Labour scrapped the two-child benefit cap in April.

The number rose by 30,000 since the start of the year and by 84,000 compared with a year earlier, representing 1.9 per cent, or nearly one in 50, of all UK children. Separately, 3.16 million households, or 14.4 per cent of the total, currently have no one working, while 347,000 households, or 1.6 per cent, have never had a working member, up 55,000 on last year. The figures come alongside wider concerns, including almost a million young people classed as NEET, unemployment forecast to exceed 5 per cent later this year, and job vacancies at a 12-year low, which commentators link to rising employer costs such as national insurance increases and minimum wage rises.