UK: Minister says self-diagnosed mental health issues driving up benefits costs

A rise in people self-diagnosing with mental health problems is fuelling Britain’s worklessness crisis, Liz Kendall has said.

The Work and Pensions Secretary said the change was one of a “combination of factors” behind spiralling rates of economic activity that are piling pressure on the UK’s welfare system.

She also warned that Labour will strip people of their benefits if they refuse to engage with attempts to get them back to work, as part of a radical set of welfare reforms to be announced on Tuesday.

The term “economically inactive” is used by the Government to describe people who are “out of work and not looking for a job”.

Rates have soared since the pandemic, with around 9.3 million people now fitting the definition, up hundreds of thousands since Covid.

Meanwhile, the number of working age people on health-related benefits has risen by a million since 2019, to 4.2 million, according to analysis by the Institute for Fiscal Studies think tank.

Speaking to the BBC’s Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg show, Ms Kendall was asked whether she genuinely thought the number of people incapable of working had risen by a million in just five years.

She said a rise in people presenting with mental health problems, both medically and self-diagnosed, had contributed to the increase.

She also pointed to a rise in the number of women over 50 suffering from “bad knees” and hips, which she blamed on a “real problem” with the NHS.

“I think there are a combination of factors here,” she said.

“I do think we are seeing an increase in the number of people with mental health problems, both self-diagnosed – I think it’s good that stigma has been reduced – but also diagnosed by doctors.

“We’re also seeing more people in their 50s and above, often women, with bad knees, hips, joints. We’ve got a real problem with our health service.”

Asked whether she believed that “normal feelings” were being “overmedicalised”, Ms Kendall said: “I genuinely believe there’s not one simple thing. You know, the last government said people were too bluesy to work.

“I mean, I don’t know who they were speaking to. There is a genuine problem with mental health in this country.”

Telegraphs UK