FIND work or lose your benefits, Rishi Sunak warned today as he launched a huge crackdown on state handouts and Britain’s “sick note” culture.
In a major speech, the PM set out his “moral mission” to overhaul the benefits system to get more people back into work.
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Rishi Sunak is overhauling the benefits systemCredit: PA
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The PM has announced a review of the ‘fit note’ system after GPs issued 11million last yearCredit: Getty
He vowed to:
- Remove benefits after 12 months for anyone who doesn’t take up work or a job offer
- Force people who don’t do a full-time work week to find extra work in return for benefits
- Take the power off GPs to stop them signing people off sick
- Crack down on sick notes amid 900,000 job vacancies in the UK
- Introduce AI to help crackdown on benefits fraud
Claimants who don’t follow conditions set out by their work coach will now see their life on benefits come to an end.
Sunak wants to shift away from GPs signing off Brits with “Fit Notes” -leaving it to health professionals to make the decision.
He said: “Anyone who doesn’t comply with the conditions set by the work coach, such as accepting an available job will, after 12 months, have their claim closed and their benefits removed entirely.”
The intervention comes as figures this week revealed that 2.8 million people are currently signed off as long-term sick.
Mr Sunak said: “We now spend £69 billion on benefits for people of working age with a disability or health condition.
“That’s more than our entire schools budget, more than our transport budget, more than our policing budget.
“And spending on personal independence payments alone is forecast to increase by more than 50% over the next four years…
“That’s not right, it’s not sustainable, and it’s not fair on the taxpayers who fund it.”
He aims to give Brits “easy and rapid” access to the specialists to help slash the long-term sickness figure which has hit a record 2.83million.
The PM announced a review of the “fit note” system after GPs issued 11million last year — 94 per cent rating the recipient “not fit for work”.
Brits working less than half a full-time week will now have to try and find extra work to get benefits.
A new fraud bill will treat benefit fraud like tax fraud with new powers to make seizures and arrests.
The bill is part of a fresh bid to stop fraudsters ‘gaming the system’, Sunak added.
Sunak’s speech at a glance
THE PM vowed to
- Remove benefits after 12 months for anyone who doesn’t take up work or a job offer
- Force people who don’t do a full-time work week to find extra work in return for benefits
- Take the power off GPs to stop them signing people off sick
- Crackdown on sick notes amid 900,000 job vacancies in the UK
- Introduce AI to help crackdown on benefits fraud
Welfare Secretary Mel Stride last week faced criticism for saying there was a risk the “normal ups and downs of human life” were labelled as medical conditions, holding people back from work.
Mr Sunak said he welcomes progress on people openly talking about mental health issues and will not “dismiss or downplay” them.
The Prime Minister added: “Just as it would be wrong to dismiss this growing trend, so it would be wrong merely to sit back and accept it because it is too hard, or too controversial, or for fear of causing offence.
“Doing so would let down many of the people our welfare system was designed to help.”
Mr Sunak added that there is a “growing body of evidence that good work can actually improve mental and physical health”.
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.”
Speaking on Times Radio this morning, Mr Stride said: “Of course, health care professionals are going to have to be very much involved in decisions around assessing people in terms of their medical condition.
“We are actually launching a call for evidence today on fit notes, which will be asking that question and many others.
“We do want to listen very carefully to medical practitioners, to all sorts of people across society to make sure that we get this right.
“But, there’s no question of us taking medical decisions away.
“We need to have professionally qualified people to take those decisions. We totally recognise that.
“Of course we are not out there demonising people. Far from it.
“Equally, I think we do need to have a grown up conversation about this.
“We are too readily perhaps materialising or labelling, what in the past would have been seen as the general ups and downs of the human condition, as something more serious than that.
“And I think we need to have a grown up debate about it.
“I think to simply sort of step out and say, well cast it all as being totally unreasonable or acceptable and so on is unhelpful to that debate.”
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Source: tiengtrunghaato.edu.vn