Rishi tells sicknote Britain: Get a job ... it’ll do you good

PUTTING people with mild depression and anxiety back to work will be ‘good for them’, Rishi Sunak said yesterday, as it emerged the number on disability benefits for the conditions has doubled in five years.

The Prime Minister said the benefits system was in danger of ‘medicalising the everyday challenges and anxieties of life’ and suggested those with ‘ less severe’ symptoms ‘should be expected’ to find jobs.

Ministers have published proposals for a radical overhaul of the disability benefits system, which could see people offered therapy and treatment instead of handouts.

It comes as successful new claims for disability benefits for mental health conditions such as anxiety and depression are up from 2,200 a month before the pandemic in 2019 to 5,300 now. A Whitehall source said the number receiving Personal Independence Payment (PIP) for similar conditions has doubled to 360,000 in the past five years.

Mr Sunak said it was ‘really positive’ people were more open about mental health and it was right that they ‘get the treatment and support they need’. But he told ITV News: ‘What we shouldn’t be doing is medicalising the everyday challenges and anxieties of life, and assuming that just because someone is grappling with some of these things... if they are less severe, they should be expected to engage in the world of work... because that’s fair. Also... I do believe that is fundamentally good for them as well.

‘Work is really important to my view of the type of country I want to build. Not just because work gives you financial security. Work also gives you dignity. It gives you purpose. It gives you hope. And I’m determined to be a leader of a country where hard work is always supported.’

The PM also said it was wrong that people are able to get PIP, which can be worth more than £700 a month, without a medical diagnosis, adding that the assessment system was ‘easily exploited’.

He said the proposals would ‘make the system fairer to the taxpayer, better targeted to individual needs and harder to exploit’. Disabled people could be offered one-off grants or vouchers to pay for things such as home alterations rather than getting weekly cash payments indefinitely.

There are 2.6million people on disability benefits with the bill on track to hit £28billion a year by 2028. Labour declined to say whether it would continue the Government’s reforms if it wins power.