For Whose Benefit?
Proposals to Reform Health and Disability Benefits & To Create a New Social Contract
March 6, 2025
A major new report – backed by former Labour Work and Pensions Secretary Lord Blunkett – calls for a radical overhaul to the health and disability benefits system, arguing that Britain’s health and disability benefit system for people of working age isn’t working: fiscally, technically or morally.
Forecasts from the Office of Budget Responsibility suggests that if the growth of health and disability benefit spending to 2028/29 were to materialise, almost £1500 per year per person across the UK would be spent on these benefits.
Policy Exchange argue that the current system actively discourages the behaviours we should be encouraging; incentivising claimants to prove what they cannot do, rather than what they can.
For too many individuals – the authors claim – “broader social issues are now being parked in our welfare system, where our response is to make a fiscal transfer and hope this support suffices. The benefits system has arguably been a front-stop, rather than a backstop for too many people. As a result, the system is becoming unaffordable, delivers poor outcomes and creates a ‘helpless state’ for both claimants and policymakers alike.”
Policy Exchange recommend:
- Policy Exchange recommends major reform to the disability benefit, the Personal Independence Payment (PIP), so that it becomes a ‘conditional’ benefit for those aged 16-30. Individuals in this age cohort would be required to look for work, to volunteer or be engaged in further education and training, except in exceptional circumstances.
- The assessment process should be simplified through the creation of a ‘Single Assessment’ for all health and disability benefits with the Work Capability Assessment scrapped.
- Parliamentary scrutiny over benefit reform should become commonplace. A ‘Health Panel’ – akin to the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) – should be established to advise (upon Ministerial request) reforms to the assessment and eligibility criteria which should be put to votes in Parliament.
- Significant reforms should be introduced to Access to Work via the creation of ‘packages’ of tools, specialist aids and equipment to improve overall levels of support and speed and to maximise the advantages of ‘bulk buying’ items.
- To create a more dynamic and joined-up system of support, assessors for PIP and the Work Capability Assessment (WCA) should have the ability to signpost and to refer claimants to other DWP support as part of/during the assessment process (e.g. to Access to Work).
- A Rapid Response Model (delivered through general practice and linked to employment and wider VCSE services) should be launched, targeted at individuals of working-age who have dropped out of employment, or are likely to be absent for more than 21 days.
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