People should not be able to claim benefits or be signed off work due to anxiety or mild depression, Kemi Badenoch said today, demanding handouts be restricted to those with ‘severe’ mental health problems.
The Conservative leader lashed out the UK’s welfare dependency today as she outlined proposals to cut billions from the bill and get people back into work.
She used a major speech to demand an end to a system of ‘self-certification’ that had led to a situation where 25 per cent of workers claim they are disabled.
‘I do not believe that one in four of us can be considered disabled without that term losing all meaning,’ she told an audience in Westminster.
‘In this new age of diagnoses and self-certification, our sickness benefits system cannot cope.’
And she also hit out at the amount of money and aid – including funding for brand new cars – being given to people with non-life-threatening ailments like anxiety, food intolerances and acne.
‘We are going to have to draw a line in the sand about which conditions the state gives out support for,’ Mrs Badenoch said.
‘Food intolerances are a medical fact, but they’re not something we should be handing out new cars for. That is not a joke. This actually happens.
‘And anxiety and mild depression are real conditions but that doesn’t mean those suffering should be signed off work courtesy of the taxpayer.’
The Conservative leader lashed out the UK’s welfare dependency today as she outlined plans to cut billions from the bill and get people back into work.
And she also took aim at Reform UK, accusing both Nigel Farage’s party and Labour of ‘turning a blind eye’ to the impact of the rising welfare bill.
She pointed to Centre for Social Justice analysis suggesting that by tightening mental health claims the government could save £9billion, which could be spent on research and treatment.
Living on sickness benefits will soon pay £2,500 a year more than a minimum wage job, it was revealed last night.
Earnings of the unemployed who claim ill health payments will overtake those of workers on the national living wage next year, according to the CSJ.
A separate report last week showed disability benefits worth up to £10,000 a year – including funding for a brand new car – are being handed out to people suffering from acne, old age and even writer’s cramp.
The number of people receiving the enhanced mobility rate personal independence payments (PIP) has shot up in the past six years, from 734,136 in January 2019 to 1.75 million people in April this year.
The largest increase in recipients uncovered by the Taxpayers’ Alliance’s analysis were for autism, anxiety and depression.
Mrs Badenoch called for an end to remote assessments of benefit claimants, arguing that this had allowed people to ‘game the system’, and pledge to ‘get people back to work’ through retraining and ‘early intervention’.
The speech came a week after Sir Keir Starmer U-turned on proposals to cut the benefits bill by £5 billion in the face of discontent among his backbenchers.
After the U-turn, economists have warned that the Government’s proposals will now deliver zero savings by 2030.
Mrs Badenoch attacked the Labour Government as being ‘beholden to left-wing MPs’ and ‘completely unprepared for government’.
And she also took aim at Reform UK, accusing both Nigel Farage’s party and Labour of ‘turning a blind eye’ to the impact of the rising welfare bill.
Mr Farage has vowed to scrap the two-child benefit cap if Reform UK comes to power, something the Conservatives have criticised as unaffordable.
‘Nigel Farage pretends to be a Thatcherite Conservative but really, he’s just Jeremy Corbyn with a pint and a cigarette,’ Mrs Badenoch said, to applause.
‘On welfare he shows his true colours – promising unaffordable giveaways with no plan to fix the system.’
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