New Department for Work and Pensions curbs have been announced by the government in a bid to tackle "sicknote culture". Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has announced curbs on disability benefits amid the ongoing Cost of Living crisis.
The PM is launching a consultation on the Personal Independence Payment (Pip) and said the country had a “sicknote culture” that needed to be tackled. He said “something has gone wrong” since the Covid pandemic, which began back in 2020.
“Most worrying, the biggest proportion of long-term sickness came from young people … parked on welfare,” Sunak said. He said the country could not afford the “spiralling” disability welfare bill of £69 billion - and it is forecast to increase in the coming years.
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Mr Sunak wants to confirm plans to legislate “in the next parliament” to close benefit claims for anyone who has been claiming for 12 months but is not complying with conditions on accepting available work. And he wants to ask Universal Credit claimants to look for more work.
He will increase the the earnings threshold from £743 a week to £892 a week, so people paid below this amount have to seek extra hours. He is due to say: “We should see it as a sign of progress that people can talk openly about mental health conditions in a way that only a few years ago would’ve been unthinkable, and I will never dismiss or downplay the illnesses people have.
“But just as it would be wrong to dismiss this growing trend, so it would be wrong merely to sit back and accept it because it’s too hard; or too controversial; or for fear of causing offence. Doing so, would let down many of the people our welfare system was designed to help.”
He will say there is a “growing body of evidence that good work can actually improve mental and physical health”, adding: “We need to be more ambitious about helping people back to work and more honest about the risk of over-medicalising the everyday challenges and worries of life.”
