John Healey, the Chancellor, says the benefits bill will fall by the next election but without "crude cuts", according to the Guardian. The paper says his wording echoed Andy Burnham.
Speaking in post-Budget broadcast interviews on Thursday morning, Mr Healey said the government would set out its plans after two reviews. One is the Milburn review of young people and work. The other is the Timms review of the disability benefit system.
He told Radio 4's Today programme: "We have to bring the benefits bill down." The Guardian quotes him saying: "We will expect, as we've done before, that (young people) take up the offers, take up the offers, and that's the way that we can bring welfare bills down in the long term."
Personnel Today reports that he called current welfare spending levels unsustainable. He told Good Morning Britain the approach would be modelled on the conditions the late-1990s Labour government attached to youth welfare.
The Guardian says he was pressed after OBR documents suggested sickness and disability benefits would cost £100bn a year before the end of the decade. That figure has not been independently checked.