A government expert panel has been set up to combat ill health and worklessness

To combat the rising number of people who are unable to work, due to ill health or other reasons, the government has created a Advisory Board for Labour Market.

The board led by Liz Kendall, the work and pensions minister, met this week for the first meeting to discuss what the government calls the “greatest challenge in employment for a century”.

The Department for Work and Pensions announced that a white paper on the subject will be released in the autumn.

The board, which is composed of experts in the fields of business, industrial relations, and academia, will examine how to best address economic inactivity and, in particular, how to attack the root causes of people not working. They will also address the issue of poor mental and physical health.

Kendall said that “spiralling inactivity” is the biggest employment challenge of a generation. Nearly 2.8 million people are out of work because they have long-term illnesses.

It will take some time to address these challenges, but we are going to tackle the economic inactivity and fix the foundations.

Paul Gregg is the former director of Centre for Analysis of Social Policy, University of Bath.

The other members are Steven Machin, Professor of Economics and Director of the Centre for Economic Performance, Lindsey Macmillia is a professor of Economics at the Centre for Education Policy and Equalising Opportunities and Gavin Kelly is the executive chair of the Resolution Foundation.

Anita Charlesworth is the director of research at the Health Foundation. Stuart McIntyre is a professor of Economics at the University of Strathclyde. Ruby McGregor Smith is from the House of Lords. Nicola Smith is the head of the rights, international social, and economics departments at the TUC.