Some things are so predictable that they attract virtually no attention. Night follows day, the Earth spins on its axis, winter slowly gives way to spring and a Chancellor of the Exchequer in desperate need of cash vows to crack down on people receiving sickness benefits.
This has become an event so frequent in British politics that it now borders on cliché. It does not seem to matter which party is in power or who leads the Treasury: those who are too ill to work have become used to being told that they are an unaffordable, unsustainable burden on everybody else.
The latest senior politician to leap on this bandwagon is Rachel Reeves. Writing this weekend in The Sun, the Chancellor vowed that she would “not hesitate to act” to drive down Britain’s benefits bill.
Reeves’s article could easily have been written by any of her Conservative predecessors. She insisted that “we cannot keep footing the bill for the spiralling number of people out of work”, as if people suffering from sickness in a country with the sixth biggest economy in the world have no right to expect support.
Then she claimed that the recent increase in spending on benefits would be enough to freeze fuel duty for two years or fill nine million potholes. The message was clear: giving support to people who are too ill to work to help them pay for their food, heating and bills is a waste of money that could instead be being spent on making it easier to drive a car.
And so, the Chancellor insisted, she would “look closely at the rising cost of health and disability benefits”. That sort of language has become all too familiar to those reliant on these payments. They know what happens next: further cuts to benefits that are already woefully inadequate for many who rely on them.
Astonishingly, the Chancellor made no mention in her article of any of the reasons why we are spending record amounts on sickness benefits – easier, it seems, to imply the fault lies with those dependent on them.
Particularly curious was her decision to ignore one of the biggest causes of the soaring benefits bill: the dire state of the NHS. Whether they are suffering from an arthritic hip or long-term depression, people too unwell to work are waiting longer than ever to get the help and treatment they need.
Nowhere is this more true than in mental health care, which has been woefully underfunded for years. As things stand, people struggling badly with their mental health often have to wait many months, or even years, to be seen.
The Chancellor, of course, is in a position to change this. If she was serious about tackling the reasons that Britain has become the sick man of Europe, she would be ploughing more money into mental health services to support the 1 million people currently waiting for treatment. Such an investment now would deliver a very quick return.
Reeves’s Cabinet colleagues, Wes Streeting, the Health Secretary, and Liz Kendall, the Work and Pensions Secretary, acknowledge that things need to change. They are working on plans to cut waiting lists and offer more support to those currently off work sick, including by recruiting 8,500 more mental health professionals. But these will take time to work, and time is something that Reeves does not have. She is desperate to find some money to spend and desperate to convince investors and voters alike that she does, after all, have a plan to inject life into Britain’s ailing economy.
And so, it seems, the Chancellor will reach for the easiest lever at her disposal when it comes to cutting the welfare bill: making it even harder for people to claim incapacity benefits.
This isn’t just morally wrong – according to new research, it’s economically illiterate too. A new report by Pro Bono Economics shows that these sort of changes would actually harm Reeves’s drive for economic growth. Why? Because disabled people already have far less disposable income than those without disabilities – 30 per cent less even for those receiving benefits. And so support from the state is not just a vital lifeline; it also has an enormous positive impact on their quality of life, allowing them to seek support for their medical issues, reduce their social isolation and contribute more to the economy.
It is possible to put an economic value on this wellbeing boost, using the Treasury’s own formulae, and the figure is massive. According to the report, the life improvements that come with receiving disability benefits amount to a value of £12,300 per person per year – a total of £42bn for those receiving support. That compares to a £28bn cost of providing benefits to these people. In other words, continuing to pay disability benefits is a worthwhile investment and promotes growth – and there is even an economic case for increasing, rather than reducing, access.
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Read MoreIf Reeves really wants to cut Britain’s welfare bill, it is spending on the state pension that she should be focusing on, not spending on disability benefits. She cannot credibly claim that Britain can’t afford to keep supporting people with disabilities while at the same time maintaining her support for the ludicrous triple lock on pensions that sees more and more money each year funnelled to even the wealthiest pensioners, regardless of whether they need it. Even the Conservatives now admit that this is unsustainable.
At the same time, the Chancellor should rethink her words as well as her actions. Pitting benefit claimants against working people and telling them that the country can no longer afford their ill-health perpetuates the demonisation of those who are genuinely too sick to work.
This pins the responsibility on the wrong people: Britain’s increasingly sick society is a failure of its leaders, not its citizens.
Recent governments have allowed us to be ruthlessly exploited by fast food giants and tech corporations, oversaw a cack-handed response to a global pandemic and allowed our health system to fall into disrepair. It is little wonder we are increasingly unhealthy, mentally and physically – yet still our politicians and much of the media imply that it is somehow the fault of those who are sick.
Sadly, this is nothing new. For well over a decade, those who are too ill to work have had to watch our national leaders portray them as a burden on everybody else.
Now Reeves is continuing this narrative and soon, it seems, will once again take the axe to the support they rely on. Far from being a cause for boasts, it would, if it happens, be a cause for shame.
Ben Kentish presents his LBC show from Monday to Friday at 10pm, and is former Westminster editor
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