Starmer's opportunity: How understanding health can help benefit claimants find work

25 September 2024, 13:46 | Updated: 25 September 2024, 15:09

Today, the Prime Minister has signalled that tackling worklessness caused by health will be a major focus for his government.

He is right to prioritise this – but he will need to show a much better understanding of the issues than the previous government if he hopes to make progress.

Let’s start with the context. Our health is in crisis. As the landmark final report of the IPPR Commission on Health and Prosperity showed last week, people in this country are getting sicker.

This rising sickness is affecting us at every age– children, adolescents, working age adults and people in retirement are all more likely to have chronic, serious illnesses than they were even a decade ago.

Much of this illness could have been prevented or more effectively treated. The failure of previous governments to act is costing lives.

But it is also costing livelihoods. The number of people outside work because of sickness – or ‘economic inactivity’ - has risen to record highs and could continue to grow rapidly in the years to come.

It’s a distinctively British problem. Other peer countries saw the pandemic force many out of work in 2020 and 2021. But they have generally recovered. By contrast, in Britain, the challenge of inactivity due to sickness continues to grow.

This is unlikely to be solved by more sanctions or coercion. The last government’s designation of the problem as a ‘sick note culture’ utterly misunderstood the problem.

First, because people out of work due to sickness tend to have very complex needs – on average three or four different major conditions. Second, because many in this group do want to work – up to seven in 10, according to recent research.

They are prevented from doing so by our broken approach to both health and employment. The most obvious problem is the broken state of our NHS. If the state cannot meet its obligation to provide people timely, effective access to care, how can we expect millions to find work?

The standards we set for employers also pose problems. A great many British jobs do not have the standards of inclusivity, flexibility, security, and support that would make them appropriate for people with existing health conditions. We need a higher supply of higher quality jobs.

And our approach to health benefits doesn’t help either. Today, if you’re in receipt of health benefits, trying out work means risking a total loss of your payments if things don’t work out. That means trying work can carry huge risk.

The Prime Minister is right that our economy needs a solution to Britain’s health and work challenge. Stigma and sanction won’t work – and so the state must play a more decisively role. By ensuring access to great healthcare, by giving more people the security they need to try work without risking their benefit entitlements, and by making sure there is a supply of jobs that are appropriate for people with health needs.

That’s the path to a healthier, happier, fairer and more prosperous Britain.