Re:View 5 December 2025
Chief Executive
Last week at the Budget, the Government increased welfare spending by £16 billion a year by the end of the decade. On Monday, the PM — again — promised welfare reform to reduce that spend. “Our welfare state is trapping people, not just in poverty. But out of work. Young people in particular. And that is a poverty of ambition.” Hear hear!
The problem, as I wrote ahead of the Budget, is that spending today while promising reform tomorrow is rarely an effective approach.
That said, yesterday the health secretary announced an independent review of the rising demand for mental health, autism and ADHD services, in the specific context of the soaring disability-related welfare bill. Streeting has previously suggested that such conditions are being over-diagnosed, though has since rowed-back on that language.
Certainly there has been a very significant increase in the number of, particularly young people, diagnosed with mental health conditions — and the number claiming out-of-work disability-related benefits is alarming. 270,000 16-34 year-olds are now living on benefits due to a mental health condition, a 26% increase in just the last year alone.
Streeting is right to question what is going on. Very few people ever leave these benefits, which no one can think is a good outcome for people with their whole lives ahead of them.
In his independent review of economic inactivity, Sir Charlie Mayfield states “frustration with work, still less ‘I hate my boss’ syndrome, are not health conditions”. A survey published this week of 16-29 year olds found that 42% were anxious about working with people and 30% were anxious about using the phone; 33% of those in employment reported finding it ‘challenging’.
This does point to a serious issue with the resilience and expectations of those moving into the world of work. The answer to which cannot be unnecessarily medicalising anxiety (which is, at the non-severe end, a normal human condition) and writing people off to a life on benefits. Let’s hope the Government are bold in actually delivering reform.
Look out on Monday for the first in our series of mini blogs to mark the festive period: '12 days to remake the State'!