Sir Keir Starmer vowed to reduce consumption on the British “broken” and “vague” social welfare system related to health and costs the Government 65 billion pounds a year And on the road until 2030 he reached £ 100 billion.
The drivers behind the sudden increase in incapacity and benefits from disability in recent years have been complex and sometimes contraintouitive. Experts invited the Government to act with caution to avoid the unintentional consequences that had found previous attempts at reforms.
“Growing consumption for disability does not mean that consumption for well -being is out of control,” said Ben Geiger, a professor of social sciences and health at King’s College in London. But, he added, “it is astonishing that despite all the cuts in the past decade, consumption for well -being 2024 is higher than in 2007.”
Most politics experts agree that the increase in requests for inability and disability can be attributed to three main causes: financial incentives that encourage people to seek higher levels of payment of fees, an increase in the number of people with mental health from pandemic, and inadequate support and incentives to obtain people who can work in employment.
Great consumption reductions for well -being have become a central ambition for the Labor Government because of exacerbating fiscal appearance Faced with cancerous Rachel Reeves ahead of the spring statement on March 26. It is also under pressure to release more money for consumption in defense.
But the Cabinet MPs threaten to rebel against some more drastic proposals for limiting benefits than disability.
Data suggest that the UK is extraordinary when it comes to a sudden increase in people who require health benefits, and almost all comparable countries recorded a pandemic fall.
About 4 million to 64 years-one of the 10-US hard or disability or incompetent benefits, compared to 2.8mn in 2019, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies.
More than half of this increase stems from an increase in claims relating to mental health or behavioral conditions; 44 percent of all applicants cites mental health as his main situation.
There is more and more evidence that the state of mental health on the rise. NHS England data show that the number of people in contact with mental health services increased by almost two-fifths in five years by 2023-24.
Experts point out that the applicants often have multiple conditions: four -fifths of people recorded as if they have a problem with mental health in the assessment of labor capabilities also reported the problem of physical health, according to Joseph Rowntree Foundation, a charity organization.
The second fundamental change is demographic. About fifths of increasing in recent years can be explained by the growing permanent pension age and the aging of the population, increasing the number of sick and unpleasant people who belong to the “working age” category.
However, experts agree that these factors themselves do not take into account the circumference of the rise – perverse incentives are likely to be.
In 2023. The standard unemployment fee for one adult reached a 40-year-old low in real sense, according to official briefing.
According to JRF, one adult needs at least £ 120 a week to cover the basics such as food, utility services, vital household items and travel, excluding rent. But the basic rate of universal loan offers only £ 85 per week.
Most benefits outside the job also require the applicant to prove that they are actively looking for a job, with sanctions if they miss the meetings or prove that they are hunting for work.
The KCL Geiger notes that people are “often terrified of decay” and scared of the stress of regular official checks. This encourages many to seek a higher rate of fees paid without conditions.
There is little evidence that the procedure has become milder: the proportion of the applicant assigned to paying personal independence after the initial estimate amounted to 52 percent in 2019-20. And 54 percent in 2023-24.
But experts say the system dentinctivates people to find a job. “If you take the steps toward the job, it will take place against you,” said Ayla Ozmen, director of politics and campaigns in the charity organization of the Z2K.
“Although in principle, people should not be punished, they are in practice,” she said, noting that approximately 90 percent of the applicant Z2K acted with the sentences that colors were looking for a job because of the risk of losing health benefits.
There was also a sharp decline in the number of reconsiderations from pandemic cases, reducing the Government’s ability to identify people whose condition had improved.
Repeatedly the greatest driver of people who go away from the benefits. Louise Murphy, a senior economist of a resolution fondation, said that it lacked a harmonized thinking about how to help the applicants the most advantage of work in the work.
Foundation for learning and work, research group, proposed the introduction of a “passport for compensation” that would allow the applicants automatically to automatically return to their previous fee status if they leave the job within six months.
He also called for an increase in the current working accessory – which allows the applicants for the inability to make a job obliged without their benefits to withdraw – from eight hours to 16 hours a week.
Starmer made it clear that he intends to significantly reduce consumption on health benefits with the aim of saving around £ 5 billion a year until the end of Parliament, and measures are expected to mostly focus on PIP.
Several experts in politics have warned of drastic changes in eligibility, noting that they can create distorted incentives in other areas of the system and often result in minor savings than originally expected.
When the Government of the Tory-Liberal Democrat coalition announced the transition from a disability life for PIP in 2012, she claimed that by the end of Parliament it would create about £ 1.4 billion savings. In fact, the move saved only £ 100m according to the budget by the Budget Responsibility Office.
Many claim that one of the ways to improve the existing system would be a rebalancing difference between the basic universal loan rate and higher levels of benefits from incompetence – but this would not create great savings.
One option for saving costs would be to freeze PIP that it is not increasing in accordance with inflation, which the move that former conservative chancellor George Osborne believed was a step too far. Others would be the imposition of stricter criteria of acceptability, to exclude some cases that are thought to be less serious, including some mental health conditions. If the load load reduced by 12 percent or 620,000 applicants, it would create £ 5 billion savings by 2030.
“Save as much as this government wants from the fee system will be really difficult,” Murphy said. “Limiting eligibility means you concentrate on great losses among the fixed group of people. It’s a high risk thing. “
