Why Labour MPs must continue to reject the cuts

I recently published two briefings about social security for sick and disabled people, in an attempt to help MPs see why Labour's planned cuts are a disastrous idea. I summarise the two briefings below.

The briefing on employment support can be read here, the briefing on incapacity for work can be read here, and the briefing on working-age social security expenditure can be read here. Alternatively, they can be downloaded as PDFs from my publications page.

Brief Summary

• For employment support to be an adequate mitigation for cuts to social security, almost all sick and disabled people impacted by the cuts would have to move into and retain at least some part-time work, at a level that compensates for the cut to social security.

• Most people in receipt of ESA or UC HE have chronic illness that restricts the capacity for any activity. Evidence suggests that most people struggled in work for years before becoming too ill to sustain work, and are on a downwards health trajectory. They are not well enough to work. Attempting to do so would worsen their health and quality of life.

• Employment support for people who are assessed as unfit for work has marginal outcomes, with most programmes having no impact and the best programme seeing only 4 participants in 100 entering work because of the support.

• Spending on working-age social security is at normal levels for the UK, and spending on cash benefits is similar to the OECD average. There is no expenditure crisis to urgently resolve.

Summary

For employment support to be an adequate mitigation for cuts to social security, almost all sick and disabled people impacted by the cuts[i] would have to instead move into and retain at least some part-time work, and they would have to do so at a level that compensates for the cut to social security. The bigger the cut to social security, the more work would need to be taken up.

A person who loses the full UC HE of £97/week would also lose the work allowance in UC. This means that they would have to work 21 hours/week at the minimum wage to make up for the lost income, after accounting for reductions in Council Tax Support (assuming a Band A property) and UC when the person starts earning. But people who have been assessed as unfit for work are very unlikely to have the capacity to work for 21 hours/week. If they did, they would already be doing it, because that would increase their income – and according to the government, a mere £97/weeks is enough incentive to change behaviour, and it would only take 8 hours to earn that at the NMW. Someone who can work 21 hours would have no problem working 8 hours for the sake of an improved income and living standard.

Most people who receive ESA or UC HE are people who experience chronic illness. They are people who experience pain, physical fatigue, cognitive fatigue, and other illness symptoms. The consequence of chronic illness is a reduced capacity for any activity, including paid work. When income is taken away from these people, they cannot mitigate it by moving into paid work. This is also what we see in the data: most people who move into work from ESA or UC HE do so because their health improved; and most people on ESA or UC HE are in fact on a downwards health trajectory.

Paid work comes with a range of costs. A major difficulty with paid work is the quality, quantity, and timescale requirements which a person with chronic illness cannot reliably meet. But additionally, engaging in paid work takes away from the capacity to engage in other meaningful activity, such as family life and religious participation. A person who only has capacity for a handful of hours of activity each week should be allowed to spend those hours in a meaningful and human manner, and not forced to earn whatever little income they can at the expense of a decent life.

If the government truly believed employment support were able to achieve high, rapid and sustained entry to work, then there would be no need to cut social security. Social security receipt would fall rapidly as soon as employment support is provided and people move into work. Instead, employment support programmes for sick and disabled people see at most 4% of participants move into work who wouldn’t have moved into work anyway; and 89-98% of participants do not move into work at all.

[i] Sick and disabled people are impacted differently by the cuts, depending on when they first became unable to work. For people who become ill between April 2026 and April 2028, they are assessed under the Work Capability Assessment, and if they are assessed as unfit for work and unfit for work-related activity then their Health Element is only £50/week instead of the current £97/week. For people who become ill after April 2028, those who do not get PIP Daily Living will get no UC HE at all. Those who get PIP DL will only get £50/week.