Well, an MS-Windows license and an MS-Office license would cost over £150 so ... you an call it a challenge then
Work related stuff? What is his occupation?
A laptop? Is this for the mobility of it, or lack of space?
If he's not gonna go on line, and thus not sharing any stuff, he could be very happy with a rather very old and cheap laptop, with an ancient version of Ubuntu on it, combined with OpenOffice... both are free, so, he could be done with like £50 for a really old laptop with a bad battery?