People with depression or anxiety could lose sick pay, says British minister

People with depression or anxiety could lose access to sickness benefits, the Work and Pensions Secretary said, as part of major welfare changes that have been described as an “all-out attack on people with disabilities”.

On Monday morning, Mel Stride announced plans to overhaul the way disability benefits work and was due to address the House of Commons on the issue later in the day.

In a green paper to be published alongside Stride’s Commons statement, ministers will set out plans to overhaul Personal Independence Payments (Pip), the main disability benefit for adults, through changes to eligibility criteria and assessments.

While he sought to portray the proposals as part of a “grown-up conversation” about the best form of welfare provision, he also indicated that the focus on the plan was part of a Conservative election strategy designed to put some pressure on Labour, a general election in which his party is expected to suffer a heavy defeat.

The plans, which will be consulted on in the coming months, also include proposals to “move away from a defined benefit system”, meaning people with certain conditions will no longer receive regular payments, but will instead access treatment as their condition does not. incur additional costs.

Stride batted away suggestions that his government had created the problem by failing to adequately provide such care in the first place, saying it was introducing a scheme in which some healthcare support would be provided alongside ‘work coaches’.

During a program interview on BBC Radio 4 Today on Monday, it was put to Stride that the Tories were taking apart the system they themselves had designed in the hope of starting a ‘welfare crime row’ that they hoped would solve a bigger political problem for Labor could cause. then for them.

“As far as Labor is concerned, Labor has no say in prosperity. The only thing they’ve said about Social Security is that they’re very squeamish about sanctions. They don’t think they should be applied in the way we think, which we think will cost billions of pounds,” he replied.

In an interview with the Times, Stride had suggested the proposals would mean people with “milder mental health problems” would no longer receive financial support. And they follow a speech in which the Prime Minister announced major changes to the welfare system earlier this month, saying that “people with less serious mental health conditions should be expected to engage with the world of work”.

Stride said the system should not pay people to deal with the “ordinary difficulties of life”, and suggested that many voters agreed with him “deep down”.

Describing the changes as “probably the most fundamental reforms in a generation”, he said: “There are people who may have milder mental health issues, or where there may have been too much of a movement to label certain behaviors as certain (medical) behaviour. conditions attached to it, where actual work is the answer or part of the answer.

“What we need to avoid is getting into a situation where we say too easily: ‘We actually need benefits.’”

Stride said a “whole plethora of things”, such as talking therapies, social care packages and respite care, could be used as an alternative to benefits.

He added that the main reason for the changes was to provide better help and not to cut costs, but he acknowledged that cost “has to be one of the considerations”.

James Taylor, executive director of strategy at the charity Scope, called for an end to the “reckless attack” on people with disabilities and for the “real underlying problems” to be fixed.

“It is difficult to have any confidence that this consultation is about anything other than cutting benefits, regardless of the impact,” Taylor said.

“Life costs much more for people with disabilities, including people with mental illness. Threatening to take away the low income Pip provides will not solve the country’s problems.

“The government must put an end to this reckless attack on people with disabilities and focus on solving the real underlying problems.”