The benefits bill won’t improve without an NHS turnaround

How much can Mel Stride really do to cut the benefits bill? In the Commons today, the Work and Pensions Secretary argued that the ‘disability benefit system for adults of working age is not consistently providing support in the way that was intended’, and that it was now time for a ‘new conversation’ about how the system should work. He spoke in much more compassionate terms than on some of the media rounds that he and Rishi Sunak have done.

But repeated questions from across the House, including from one of his Conservative predecessors in the Work and Pensions department underlined that one of the most-trailed aims of this green paper – getting people with mental illnesses back into work – might not have as much to do with the DWP as it does with the NHS. Chloe Smith did a lot of thinking on the link between worklessness and ill health when she was in the brief, and today asked whether he could be ‘comprehensive in delivering on those measures, across government?’ She asked:

Can he give us assurances about the way that he is setting up for the work that will need to be done if this is to be a success, including with the NHS and local authorities, for those who need support with their disability or ill health? It is my understanding that the NHS perhaps knows less than it could about how to help people, holistically and individually, to move back into work, or with the things that they need and care about.