Social Security Benefits: Reform
The question
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, with reference to paragraphs 2.33 to 2.35 of HM Treasury's document entitled Spring Statement 2025, published on 26 March 2025, what assessment she has made of the potential impact of the changes in health and disability benefits on (a) the health of those people receiving such benefits and (b) societal health inequalities.
Answered by Sir Stephen Timms
No such assessment has been made.
However, we have evidence that delivering better and more tailored employment support can get more people off welfare, and into work - alongside a higher expectation to engage with that support.
We are investing £1 billion a year by the end of the decade in new employment, health and skills support – one of the biggest packages of new employment support for sick and disabled people ever.
In addition, corrective action is needed after the value of the basic unemployment benefit was run down to a 40-year low, while incapacity benefits continued to rise. Meaning the rate of Universal Credit for those on the health element is now double that for those on the standard allowance. As a result, all the incentives are to claim incapacity benefits and define yourself as incapable of work, with both the OBR and IFS suggesting this has been a factor in driving higher incapacity benefit claims.
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