Lana Hempsall

For years, Britain’s welfare debate has revolved around one question: how can we prevent the spiralling numbers of people moving onto benefits, particularly among the young. It isn’t just an issue of the impact on the lives of the millions not working but the disastrous fiscal consequences. Today, a new review overseen by former health minister Alan Milburn dramatically highlights exactly how bad the position is for Neets – those not in work, employment, education or training. It also poses the critical question of what happens when an entire generation risks becoming permanently detached from work altogether? Milburn’s review is a sobering read.

Over the past five years, Britain has seen a dramatic rise in the number of people claiming disability benefits. There are now 2.8 million working-age adults who are economically inactive due to long-term sickness, a figure that has risen by over 700,000 since 2019. Personal Independence Payments (PIP) are also increasing rapidly, with over 50,000 new applications every month. Personal Independence Payments (PIP) are increasing rapidly, with over 50,000 new applications every month It is certainly true that the pandemic contributed to these figures, but the UK is the only G7 country that has not seen economic inactivity fall back toward pre-Covid levels. The UK is now a stark outlier.

Britain’s health and disability benefits bill is ballooning out of control – yet still Keir Starmer refuses to face reality. The number of people applying for these benefits has doubled since 2019 and the bill is predicted to hit £100 billion within a few years. The situation is close to breaking point – and also deeply flawed, as I found for myself when I filled out a Personal Independence Payment (PIP) form. Much of the information online appears to be aimed at helping people without disabilities game the system PIP is one of the fastest-growing area of welfare spending: a strong signal, perhaps, that something in the system is not working as it should.

Despite the opposition of a huge swathe of Labour MPs, the government’s Welfare Bill managed to scrape over the line to the next parliamentary stage. But that was only after a humiliating U-turn that ditched almost all of the Bill’s original measures, at least in regard to existing claimants of disability benefits. What was originally pitched as the ‘biggest shake-up to the welfare system in a generation’, with the aim of getting millions of people into work (and saving £5 billion in the process) is no more. Far from being the bold reset the country was promised, the Bill simply preserves a broken eligibility system that the government itself has acknowledged is not fit for purpose.