With 2.8 million people out of work as of February 2024, it comes as no surprise that the Tories are trying to make sweeping changes to tackle the problem.

In the medium term, the party sees it as being essential to boosting the UK’s productivity, plugging skills gaps and cutting the taxpayer’s welfare bill.

But in the short term, it is also electorally savvvy, putting Labour in a tricky position.

Starmer has announced plans for investment in education, green projects, and a defence spending boost to 2.5 per cent.

But the question remains over how they will fund these promises, alongside plans to offer meaningful tax cuts for working people.

The Labour leader has worked hard to escape the party’s image as being fiscally irresponsible. And its detractors will use anything to claim that Labour “can’t be trusted with the money”.

Welfare cuts are a hard one for a party that prides itself on being on people’s side – Labour is likely to want to try and avoid going too near them for fear of toxifying their image.

Already, critics have come out against Sunak’s speech – Scope, a disability equality charity, suggested Sunak’s announcements were “working against” disabled people.

But when Starmer promises to introduce tax cuts for working people, the closer we get to an election the more questions will be asked over how he plans to fund it.