Sunak: It’s unfair for benefits claimants with mild mental health conditions to get extra cash

Rishi Sunak has said it is unfair for benefits claimants with mild mental health conditions to receive hundreds of extra pounds a month from the taxpayer.

In a speech on Friday, the Prime Minister unveiled a review of top-up payments received by people with conditions such as anxiety and depression.

He warned that the spiralling size of the welfare bill and the need to clamp down on high levels of net migration meant the current situation was unsustainable.

Mr Sunak announced a five-point plan to overhaul the benefits system and get more people back into work if the Tories win the next election.

He said: “We need to be more ambitious about helping people back to work and more honest about the risk of over-medicalising the everyday challenges and worries of life.

“Fail to address this and we risk not only letting those people down but also creating a deep sense of unfairness amongst those whose taxes fund our social safety net in a way that risks undermining trust and consent in that very system. We can’t stand for that.”

The Prime Minister said the current number of people out of work was “economically unsustainable” and meant there was “no sustainable way to achieve our goal of bringing down migration levels, which are just too high”.

“We can’t afford such a spiralling increase in the welfare bill and the irresponsible burden that would place on this and future generations of taxpayers,” he said.

His intervention came after new figures published this month showed the number of “economically inactive” Britons has spiralled to more than 9.25 million.

A post-pandemic surge in long-term sickness has been responsible for much of the rise, pushing more than 700,000 extra people into the welfare system.

The UK is now a major international outlier as the only G7 nation that has not seen the number of people out of work return to levels seen before Covid.

Experts have warned that the failure to clamp down on economic inactivity is a major drag on the economy, limiting Mr Sunak’s room for measures such as tax cuts.

Mr Sunak announced a move to strip top-up payments from tens of thousands of benefits claimants with milder mental health problems.

He said those with conditions such as anxiety and depression should be helped to return to work rather than be left languishing on the long-term sick list.

The Prime Minister unveiled plans to tighten up the way in which personal independence payments – a top-up to sickness benefits – are awarded. PIPs are worth up to £740 a month and are paid to people who struggle with “daily living tasks” and mobility to cover the extra costs they face.

In the case of a severe physical disability, for instance, the cash can be used to make improvements to someone’s home such as installing a stair lift.

But over the past four years the number of people with mental health conditions claiming the payments has more than doubled, from 2,200 a month to 5,300.

Mr Sunak said this was despite there being limited evidence that people suffering with conditions like anxiety faced significantly higher living costs as a result.

Warning that the system was being “misused”, he said it would be better to help people with milder problems by offering them more mental health support instead.

He is looking at restricting the number of conditions eligible for PIP payments, and said those with problems such as depression and anxiety could be offered more help, such as talking therapy, in lieu of cash payments.

Mr Sunak also revived plans to give civil servants sweeping legal powers of arrest and seizure to crack down on fraudulent benefits claims.

He said the Department for Work and Pensions would have enforcement powers like those used by HM Revenue and Customs to go after tax evaders.

Officials will also have the ability to levy fines of up to £5,000 against a wider number of people as part of efforts to bring the welfare bill under control.

“When people see others in their community gaming the system that their taxes pay, it erodes support for the very principle of the welfare state,” he said.

The Prime Minister also recommitted to his plans to strip unemployed people of their benefits payments if they repeatedly refuse to take up job offers, saying people would be given just a year to accept a job.

Ministers have already changed the rules so that benefits claimants now have to accept a job offer from any sector, not just their preferred one, or face losing handouts.

Mr Sunak announced plans to effectively strip GPs of their powers to sign people off for long-term sickness and give the decisions to employment specialists.

Mel Stride, the Work and Pensions Secretary, has previously said the typical time someone is seen by a doctor before being signed off is just seven minutes.

Mr Sunak said the statistics showed reform is needed and that “we’re letting people down if we persist with a system that is writing far too many of them off”.

Under the new plans, “objective” experts will be drafted in to assess applications for fit notes, with a greater emphasis on encouraging people to work where possible.

Meanwhile, the Work Capability Assessment, which acts as a gateway to sickness benefits, will also be “tightened up” to promote the benefits of work.

The final plans of Mr Sunak’s plan will see 1.7 million people who are on legacy sickness benefits moved over onto Universal Credit, which encourages work.

Employment and Support Allowance payments will be phased out, with ministers saying the change will “eliminate a binary choice between work and welfare”.

The Government said that 400,000 more benefits claimants will have to spend more time with a work coach as a result of the increase in the threshold from 12 to 18 hours a week.