People diagnosed with conditions such as moderate depression, ADHD and lower-back pain should not be eligible for cash benefits, a new report has told the government, prompting furious reaction from the disability charity sector.
The research from the Tony Blair Institute (TBI) argues that conditions like these should be classed as “non-work-limiting”, meaning the default assumption is that they should not stop an individual from working.
This could be an “emergency handbrake” on welfare spending the group adds, shaving £11.5bn by 2029. Researchers also urged ministers to use secondary legislation to push through the changes, meaning they would face severely reduced scrutiny from MPs.
The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has said it will “consider” the TBI report, but learning disability charity Mencap called its proposals “deeply unhelpful and ill-informed”.
Jon Sparkes, chief executive of the charity, said the research “ignores the lived reality of people with a learning disability and plays to a populist trope about welfare”
“Our evidence is clear: people with a learning disability want to work,” he said: “What they lack is consistent, specialist support and employers willing and equipped to give them a fair chance.
“Slapping labels on people and denying them benefits will not tackle the root cause. It will push people into deeper anxiety, misery and poverty. That’s not reform, it’s a recipe for making things worse.”
The TBI’s report says “Britain is not alone in experiencing a deterioration in mental health since the pandemic”, but adds that the number of people moving onto long-term benefits as a result is more unique to the country.
The think tank, which was founded by former Labour prime minister Tony Blair, points to the 2.8 million people out of work due to ill health, with 185,000 of these being young people (aged 18 to 24). This figure that has nearly doubled from 94,000 in 2012.
The increase has raised concerns about the UK’s welfare spending, with the DWP estimated to expend £77.1 billion on health and disability benefits this financial year, up from £49.1 billion before the pandemic (2019). This compares to £146.1bn that will be spent by the department on the state pension this year.
The government is currently conducting a review of the Personal Independence Payment (Pip), the UK’s most claimed health and disability benefit, to make it “fit and fair for the future”.
The payment was at the heart of Labour’s plans to axe welfare spending last year, when proposals to tweak its assessment criteria to effectively make it harder to claim were met with fierce opposition from campaign groups and politicians.
Ministers backed down on the plans in late June after over 100 Labour MPs threatened to vote against the government on the measures. The concession – and review – was announced by disability minister Sir Stephen Timms in the middle of the debate on the legislation.
Charles Gillies, policy co-chair of the Disability Benefits Consortium and senior policy officer at the MS Society, said: “We’re really concerned that the Tony Blair Institute (TBI) are trying to force harmful benefit cuts onto the government’s agenda – something the PM was forced to backtrack on less than a year ago.
“We urge the government to remember that disabled people, campaigners and MPs didn’t stand for such harmful cuts last time, and to reject these proposals.”
Tom Pollard, head of policy, campaigns & public affairs at mental health charity mind commented that the proposals are a “discriminatory & simplistic response to a hugely complex challenge”, pointing out that eligibility for health and disability benefits is already based on functional assessments of how a claimant’s condition affects their ability to work.
Responding to the criticism, Ryan Wain, Senior Director of policy and politics at TBI said: “Up to 1,000 people a day are entering a system that, for most of them, offers no treatment, no route back to work and no plan. We are proposing a handbrake to fix that in the short term as the government rightly builds out longer term, wholesale reform on this broken system.
“Around a third of PIP assessments are completed without any external clinical evidence. 93 per cent of fit notes say ‘not fit for work’ with no adjustments. Fewer than 1 in 100 UC Health claimants move into work each month. A system with those numbers is losing the trust of the public – and when that trust goes, it is people with the most severe conditions who pay the price.”
“That is how you end up in a culture war over the existence of mental health conditions. Our proposal is the antidote to that not an example of it.”
“The government is rightly committing resource and political capital to longer-term, fundamental reform of the welfare system. We support that. But the system is failing people every day and public confidence is eroding.”
A DWP spokesperson said: “We agree that the system we inherited left too many people written off – without treatment or proper help into work. That is a failure the government is determined to fix, through reforms with opportunity at their heart.
“We’re already acting: we’ve rebalanced Universal Credit, saving nearly £1 billion; increased face-to-face assessments; and improved use of NHS evidence — all while ensuring those who genuinely can’t work are always protected. We will consider the TBI’s report.”
