Rishi Sunak vows to end what he calls ‘sicknote culture’ – UK politics live | Politics
Key events
Rishi Sunak is arguing that not getting people into work is an “irresponsible burden” on future generations and taxpayers. He says:
We risk not only letting those people down [the people who are long-term sickness benefits], but 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. And of course, the situation as it is, is economically unsustainable. We can’t lose so many people from our workforce whose contributions could help to drive growth.
And there’s no sustainable way to achieve our goal of bringing down migration levels – which are just too high – without giving more of our own people the skills incentives and support to get off welfare and back into work.
Sunak is now outlining five reforms that he says “in the next parliament, a Conservative government” will enact. The next election needs to be called by the end of January at the latest, and the Conservatives are currently about 20 points behind Labour in polling.
You can watch this Rishi Sunak press conference here …
It has been heavily trailed and I have already put some excerpts from it in the blog, but Rishi Sunak is about to speak at the Centre for Social Justice in London. I will bring you the key lines as they emerge. He is being introduced by Iain Duncan Smith, who set the centre up twenty years ago.
There was also some Labour reaction to the advanced notice of what Rishi Sunak is to say about what he calls “sicknote culture” from Alison McGovern, Labour’s acting shadow work and pensions secretary
In a statement issued overnight, PA Media quotes her saying: “A healthy nation is critical to a healthy economy, but the Tories have completely failed on both.
“We’ve had 14 Tory years, five Tory prime ministers, seven Tory chancellors, and the result is a record number of people locked out of work because they are sick – at terrible cost to them, to business and to the taxpayer, paying billions more in spiralling benefits bills.
“Today’s announcement proves that this failed Government has run out of ideas, announcing the same minor alternation to fit notes that we’ve heard them try before. Meanwhile, Rishi Sunak’s £46bn unfunded tax plan to abolish national insurance risks crashing the economy once again.”
By the way, if you are confused about what is a sicknote and what is a fit note, they are essentially the same thing. Sicknotes were re-branded as fit notes in 2010. From the government website:
The fit note can be issued following a health and work assessment by the healthcare professional, either a doctor, nurse, occupational therapist, pharmacist, or physiotherapist, who may be responsible for your care plan. The fit note will provide advice to you and your employer about the impact of your health condition, where that may have an effect on your fitness for work.
The fit note is intended to support you stay in, or return to, work. It can also enable you to access health-related benefits or evidence eligibility for statutory sick pay (SSP). You can use your fit note to support a claim to benefits.
The Work and Pensions secretary Mel Stride got into a terse exchange on BBC Breakfast this morning over whether he was arguing that GPs were signing people off sick from work too easily or incorrectly.
He opened the interview by saying:
We have 2.8 million people on long term sickness benefits. Part of the journey on to those benefits almost certainly involve visiting a GP and being signed off. We have 11 million fit notes that are signed off every year. And in the case of 94% of those fit notes that are signed off, a box is ticked that says that the person is not capable of any work whatsoever. We want to move on.
Naga Munchetty then asked him “Do you think fewer than 94% should have been signed off by GP?”
After a couple of attempts to get him to answer the question, Munchetty continued “you’re not answering my question. You’re telling me about how you would like to encourage or help people who have been signed off to avoid being signed off? What I’m asking is of the 94%, who were signed off by GPs, do you think of those some of those should not have been signed off?”
Stride then said “I’ve already said yes, so there’s a one word answer, yes. I’ve already said that three times.”
He then argued he was “not criticising GPs in the least,” when asked if he didn’t think GPs were being accurate. He went on to say:
What it’s saying is that we need need a more holistic approach to those that are currently going to their GP and are being signed off, and I think that will take the numbers down.
Labour’s Pennycook: Sunak sicknote plan is for ‘cheap headline’ rather than tackling fundamental causes and long NHS waiting times
Labour’s Matthew Pennycook has accused Rishi Sunak of going for a “cheap headline” with his comments on “sicknote culture”.
He accused the Conservatives of failing to tackle the root cause of the growing number of people on long-term sickness benefits, which is that they cannot get treatment due to near record NHS waiting lists.
The shadow housing minister said:
There has been a long term rise for many, many years under this government in people who are on long term sickness benefits, either because they can’t get the treatment they need through the NHS, which is on its knees after 14 years of Conservative government, or they are not getting the proper support to get back into work
Adding that it was “not helpful” to make sweeping generalisations that GPs were signing people off too easily, Pennycook said “We need to look at the root causes of the problem”.
He said:
This announcement screams to me a government that, after 14 years, are out of ideas and out of time. This proposal, as I understand it, is a consultation on tweaks to the fit note system. So that’s a proposal that was first mooted by the chancellor Jeremy Hunt back when he was health secretary in 2017.
We’re still the only G7 country that hasn’t returned to economic activity rates pre-pandemic. This is costing the country. Something’s got to be done. I don’t think tinkering with a call for evidence on the fit note system is anywhere near the scale of the challenge.
We’ve got to bring NHS waiting lists down. We got to do more on mental health support. We’ve also got to reform social security. We’ve got to make job centres work, provide people with real support, and make work pay. This is a long term problem that is entirely of the Tories making.
Work and pensions secretary: ‘enough is enough’ on ‘skyrocketing’ benefit spending
Appearing on LBC this morning, Work and Pensions secretary Mel Stride put the cost of what he described as “issues like long term sickness, disability, and you add up all the cost of all the benefits there, you get to about £69bn pounds”
He told listeners:
We have 11 million sicknotes issued every year. 94% of them state that the person concerned is not capable of any work whatsoever.
And what I want to move back to is a much healthier situation all round, in which we stand up a different approach.
And we’re calling this “work well”, where we will be combining healthcare support for those people, with work support.
So work coaches, so that if somebody is in employment at the moment, they get that support, and they’re not drifting away from the workplace into these long term sickness benefits, which we have 2.8 million people on
So I want to intervene at this stage, and I want to give people more support, and particularly having them in work, because we know that work is good for you.
And we know particularly that it’s good for those that have mental health issues. There’s plenty of evidence that shows that and that is the mission that I have.
All the forecasts are for these benefits to be skyrocketing upwards in time. And that is something that we must address. Enough is enough on that one is my message.
Rishi Sunak is to call for an end to ‘sick note culture’ in speech today
Prime minister Rishi Sunak is set to make what has been described as a major speech on welfare reform in which he will call for an end to the “sick note culture” and warn against “over-medicalising the everyday challenges and worries of life”.
Sunak is expected to say:
We should see it as a sign of progress that people can talk openly about mental health conditions in a way that only a few years ago would’ve been unthinkable, and I will never dismiss or downplay the illnesses people have.
But 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’s 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.
Arguing that there is a “growing body of evidence that good work can actually improve mental and physical health” he will go on to say:
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.
We don’t just need to change the sicknote, we need to change the sicknote culture so the default becomes what work you can do – not what you can’t.
Building on the pilots we’ve already started we’re going to design a new system where people have easy and rapid access to specialised work and health support to help them back to work from the very first Fit Note conversation.
We’re also going to test shifting the responsibility for assessment from GPs and giving it to specialist work and health professionals who have the dedicated time to provide an objective assessment of someone’s ability to work and the tailored support they need to do so.
It comes in the wake of Work and Pensions Secretary Mel Stride last month saying there was “a real risk” that “the normal ups and downs of human life” were being labelled as medical conditions which then held people back from working. Stride was on the morning media round this morning, and more of that in a moment.
Welcome and opening summary …
Good morning. The prime minister is expected to make a major announcement on welfare reform today, claiming that too many people are being signed off work by GPs. That should come at 9.30am. In the meantime, here are your headlines …
There is no business scheduled today for the Commons, Scottish parliament, Senedd or in the Northern Ireland assembly. The House of Lords is sitting. Rodric Williams, a senior in-house lawyer at the Post Office, is up for a second day at the Post Office Horizon IT inquiry.
It is Martin Belam with you today. Can I just echo something Andrew Sparrow mentioned yesterday, which is that the Guardian is legally liable for what gets posted in comment threads, and there is more than one story around today where there is a lot of legal risk of potential libel, so please put your thinking caps on before hitting send. You can reach me at martin.belam@theguardian.com if you spot typos/errors/omissions.
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