An inquiry has been launched in Parliament into whether Britain has a “sick note culture”.
The investigation by the House of Lords Economic Affairs Committee will seek to identify links, if any, between the UK’s benefits system and long-term sickness levels.
“Rates of economic inactivity, measured as a proportion of people of working age, fell steadily from 2012, reaching an all-time low of 20.7 per cent in early 2020,” said the committee chaired by Tory peer Lord Bridges of Headley, who previously served as a Brexit minister.
“However, the COVID-19 pandemic saw a sudden and dramatic reversal of this trend with rates of long-term sickness becoming an increasingly important factor as the pandemic wore on.”
The committee will probe the impact, if any, that changes in the benefits system have had on trends in long-term sickness and inactivity.
It also wants to hear views from experts on what is being done in this area, and what more could be considered, to “mitigate elevated levels of long-term sickness-related inactivity and the associated rising costs of welfare”.
Recent official figures showed jumps in unemployment claims in parts of London, particularly north London, in the year to September.
More than nine million people are economically inactive in the UK, mainly students, retired or individuals with caring responsibilities, but about 20 per cent of them say they do want a job, according to the Office for Budget Responsibility.
Britain has been slower than other European countries to recover from the Covid pandemic in terms of people getting back to work.
The bill for Universal Credit (and benefits it is replacing) topped £80 billion last year, with some seven million people on UC, with more than a third of them in work.
Key questions which the committee is seeking to answer include:
* What has been driving the increase in long-term sickness rates?
* How has changing conditionality in the benefits system impacted individuals’ incentives to work?
* What is the most accurate way of counting the number of benefit claimants?
* How can the benefits system be changed to get people back to work?
* What is a realistic timeframe for any plan to bring about improvements in long-term sickness related inactivity?
The committee is due to hear oral evidence on Tuesday, November 12, from two Right-leaning think tanks, with Dr Sean Phillips, head of health and social care at Policy Exchange, and Edward Davies, policy director at the Centre for Social Justice, appearing before the peers.
