𝓤𝓷𝓲𝓽𝓮𝓭 𝓝𝓮𝔀𝓼

Benefits claimants with anxiety, depression or back pain should have their handouts stopped, Tony Blair’s think tank has suggested. The former Prime Minister’s institute called for an “emergency handbrake” as it warned that 1,000 working-age people every day are signing up for benefits, with the cost to the taxpayer set to hit £73billion by the end of the decade.

The current system was now perceived as “vulnerable to misuse”, according to the Tony Blair Institute (TBI). “[This] points to a welfare system no longer fit for purpose,” the TBI warned in a report. Ryan Wain, senior director of policy and politics at the TBI, said: “No longer attracting cash payments by default, pulling this handbrake would free up resources for better mental health support and keep people in work who benefit from the purpose it brings.” But disability rights campaigners condemned the proposal.

The organisation urged Labour to introduce immediate legislation to slow a “proliferation” in claims linked to mental health, which has fuelled a surge in people signing on to sickness and disability benefits such as Universal Credit and Personal Independence Payment (PIP).

It comes as voters in almost every constituency in the country say the welfare system is too open to abuse, including more than a third of those on sickness benefits.

YouGov polling for the institute showed in all but five of the UK’s 634 constituencies, more voters say the welfare system is “too easy to access and does not do enough to prevent misuse” rather than say it is “too strict”.

Jon Sparkes, chief executive of the learning disability charity Mencap, called the think tank’s report “deeply unhelpful and ill-informed”, adding: “Slapping labels on people and denying them benefits will not tackle the root cause. It will push people into deeper anxiety, misery and poverty. That’s not reform, it’s … making things worse.”

Disability minister Sir Stephen Timms will publish a review into PIP in the autumn.

A Department for Work and Pensions spokesman said it would “encourage applications from candidates from the Civil Service and the private sector, who have a successful record of transforming large organisations”.

He added: “The government also remains committed to reforming welfare, with measures coming into effect this month saving nearly £2bn by the end of the decade and investing £2.5bn to tackle youth unemployment.”