Labour’s welfare ‘reforms’ are nothing of the sort – and they don’t go anywhere near far enough

We must end the tsunami of so-called ‘fit notes’ that sign people off work forever, writes the MP and former Conservative Party leader Iain Duncan Smith

When I resigned from David Cameron’s government as the secretary of state for work and pensions in 2016, welfare stood at £61.6bn. By the end of this parliament, it is projected to be £108.7bn. Sickness benefit alone, which was £19bn back then, is set to rise to £32bn. So it is with disability benefit, which is set to rise from £11bn to some £31bn. To govern is to choose. Against the backdrop of an increasingly unsafe world, the need to invest significantly more in defence, and a flatlining economy, further reform of welfare is a necessity.

The pandemic response has hit the welfare budget hard. The rise in sickness benefit claims poses a challenge to the government, particularly because some 60 per cent of claims since Covid are from mental health issues. The majority of these are for depression and anxiety. The health department has declared that the best treatment for depression and anxiety is going back to work. That is why, as sickness benefit moves into universal credit, the possibility of large-scale reform opens up for the government.

When Liz Kendall launched her much-trailed welfare plans in the House of Commons on Tuesday, aided by large rhetorical claims about what they would do, I could see by looking at the Pathways to Work green paper that big reform was not there. Instead, they narrowly changed a few things to obtain a saving of £5bn. This money seems to be set to help the chancellor out of the bind of breaking her own fiscal rule as she goes to the spring statement – not to reform the system.

‘I have some sympathy for Liz Kendall as, just when she sets out to get people back into work, the chancellor’s damaging rise in national insurance just made that route out of benefits a lot tougher’ (BBC)

In its new How to Get Britain Working report, the Centre for Social Justice (CSJ) has recommended a 16-step action plan to reverse economic inactivity and generate as much as £13bn for the public purse. We need a new vision of benefits in modern-day Britain struggling with the over-medicalisation of mental health. Research by the CSJ reveals more than 80 per cent of GPs agree that society’s approach to mental health has led to the normal ups and downs of life being seen as medical problems, too often prescribing when non-pharmaceutical interventions would be more suitable, and medicalising things they would prefer not to.

We must end the tsunami of so-called “fit notes” that sign people off work forever, instead encouraging GPs to use the “maybe fit for work” option. We need to enlist employers and schools if we are to halt the number of young people moving directly from education to their sick beds. We should be looking to reform the judge-led tribunal system and the underlying questions of how we function as a society, which leave too many without aspiration or hope. For example, the CSJ’s recent Lost Boys report highlighted that the number of young men who are not in education, employment or training (Neet) has increased since the pandemic by a staggering 40 per cent.

Universal credit and universal support are critical to this and the government should ensure that universal support is available in every single area to help people start on the road back to work. It is also good that they have added the CSJ’s third pillar of welfare reform, an “into work guarantee” which will give claimants a right to try work without risking their benefit. There is clear evidence that as many as 700,000 people classed as “not fit for work” would actually like to work given the right support and confidence that they will not lose their benefits if it doesn’t work out.

I have some sympathy for Kendall as, just when she sets out to get people back into work, the chancellor’s damaging rise in national insurance just made that route out of benefits a lot tougher. Businesses are now cautious about hiring new staff. Work remains the best route out of poverty. As a result of the damage Covid has inflicted, there is much more to do than this week’s statement if we are to try and turn that around.

Sir Iain Duncan Smith is a former cabinet minister and Conservative Party leader. He is the MP for Chingford and Woodford Green