Our benefits system is immoral. It traps people on welfare, hollows out the workforce and costs taxpayers billions. With an ageing population, Britain simply cannot afford to have a shrinking workforce because people are sitting at home on benefits instead of working. Overhauling the system is essential for our economy but it is a matter of fairness too – and it begins with being honest about how the system has ballooned out of control.
Most people on benefits want to work. But when the support they need is swapped for a cash handout, staying on the state can become the perversely logical choice. When Labour has beaten up businesses, and made it more expensive to employ people, jobs can be harder to come by. No handout will ever beat the long-term rewards of a decent job for someone able to work, yet this Labour government taxes those who create jobs and rewards those who don’t take them.
Nearly a million under-35s now claim disability benefits, and roughly a third of them cite autism or ADHD as their ‘main disabling condition’. The Department for Work and Pensions’ own figures reveal that more than two-thirds of young people claiming separate sickness benefits are under no requirement to look for work. According to the Nuffield Trust, the fastest growth in claims for Personal Independence Payment (PIP) for ADHD and autism is among the middle classes. The link with deprivation is weakening.
That’s why Kemi Badenoch has taken a tough love approach and set out what a new “Get to Work” programme would look like under a future Conservative government. It would mean that young people who have never worked could not drift out of education and on to benefits but would get support into work instead. Kemi has planned changes to Universal Credit too, meaning those without a substantial employment record would lose the full benefit quicker and could not spend their benefits – taxpayer’s money – on fags, booze and betting.
Personal Independence Payments need examining too. At the start of the decade PIP cost £16 billion. By 2030 it is forecast to top £41 billion. But its little wonder when the system puts a cash value on an ADHD diagnosis followed by a successful PIP claim. You wouldn’t expect to visit your GP and be told: ‘Sorry, I can’t help – have some money instead.’ Yet that is the welfare state now run from the DWP: cash in lieu of genuine support.
PIP is not an out-of-work benefit. As the government’s own website puts it: ‘You can get PIP even if you’re working, have savings or are getting most other benefits.’ Nobody examines whether the money meets a genuine financial need.
The British Social Attitudes survey recently found that most of the public do not want benefits cut for disabled people. Neither do I. But it is fair to ask whether people with less severe mental health conditions should qualify for a regular payment from the state. When the number of recipients has reached four million, and is growing by 1,000 a day, we need to look again at who qualifies for disability and long-term health benefits in the first place.
People with less severe mental health conditions may be in real distress and need support. But PIP was never meant to compensate for distress, or to plug gaps in local community healthcare. Nor was it supposed to be an income top-up for those feeling the pinch in a cost-of-living crisis but surely, in too many cases, that is what it has become?
We know where Labour stands in all of this. Working age benefit is set to rise by £50 billion over this Parliament but the Prime Minister wants to make welfare savings on the backs of pensioners by ending the pensions triple-lock. Labour came into office without a plan for post-Covid welfare reform and they are still making it up on the fly. It is our duty not to make the same mistake and that is why the detailed policy work has already begun. Costed plans to save billions, fund defence and get back people into work.
Reforming welfare is the right thing to do: for individuals, for society and for the nation’s finances. For those who can work, no benefit beats a decent wage. For those who cannot, support must be there – yes, in a properly targeted, streamlined welfare system but through improved access to community healthcare too, and not only for those with a formal diagnosis.
The immoral thing is to turn a blind eye and consign a generation of talent to a life on welfare. The Conservative party under Kemi Badenoch’s leadership will take the tough decisions to build a fairer system for everyone.