The Conservatives have begun a policy review to slash the scope and cost of the benefits system, with Kemi Badenoch saying an “age of diagnosis” for “low-level mental conditions” was fast making it unaffordable.
While it is up to the review to come up with specific policies, the Conservative leader hinted that some payments could become time limited, saying one element would examine “at what stage support should come in, and how long it should last”.
She also suggested the possibility of ending the use of relative poverty as an indicator of deprivation, saying this took no account of people’s improved circumstances if the economy grew.
Speaking at an event in central London, Badenoch said under the party’s “campaign to get Britain working again” she and three other members of her frontbench team would next year look at “the most challenging and complicated aspect of work and welfare in this country”.
While Badenoch said this would be done with medical and employment experts “to make sure that we get it right”, a key refrain of her speech was that the increase in people receiving benefits for physical and mental conditions was unaffordable.
It was, she said, particularly the case for “low-level mental health issues” such as ADHD.
“A lot of people don’t know the scale of the problem,” she said. “A lot of people don’t know how bad it is. Quite simply, our sickness benefit system was not designed to handle the age of diagnosis which we now live in.”
Badenoch indicated that the Conservatives would significantly scale back which conditions entitled people to help. “We are going to review which conditions the states treats as disabilities when it comes to benefits,” she said.
“All of us will have physical and mental challenges at some point in our lives, but in an age in which one in four people now self-report as disabled, it’s clear that we are now going to have to draw a line on what health issues the state can support.”
She said the changes would be needed to help the UK better absorb what she called “shocks” to the economy – using Brexit as an example of this alongside Covid and the financial crisis.
Badenoch suggested a move away from measuring poverty in relative terms (those receiving less than 60% of the median income).
“That is not a measure of poverty at all,” she said. “It is a bad measure, because in a booming economy, as incomes rise, more people can be classed as being in poverty, even though their real income is rising.
“We need something better. I long said that Britain is at risk of becoming a welfare state with an economy attached.”
In the speech and subsequent media Q&A, Badenoch repeatedly framed the rise in benefit spending as in part a product of choice and abuse of the system, saying many people were turning down work “because they think that those jobs are beneath them”.
But she rejected the idea that language about an age of diagnosis and what she again called a “budget for benefits street” could stigmatise people and appear nasty. “I think that politicians should be careful with language all the time, but I don’t think there’s anything wrong in what I said,” she replied.
“We spend a lot of time trying so hard not to upset people, or say anything that might ruffle any feathers, that we end up creating a system that is unworkable. I won’t apologise for the language I use. I’m actually very careful with my language, but I use language that’s going to cut through.”
