𝓤𝓷𝓲𝓽𝓮𝓭 𝓝𝓮𝔀𝓼

By 2030 over a million people will be claiming disability benefits for anxiety, depression and ADHD alone.

Too many people – particularly young people – are being signed off sick and parked on benefits, with low-level mental health and wellbeing as the leading cause.

Almost a million young people are out of work, education or training. That’s a generation written off before they have had the chance to begin.

Labour have delayed reforms and made matters worse. They U-turned on their welfare proposals last year and their job-killing regulations and employment tax rises are piling costs onto businesses. Terrified of their backbenchers, Labour are incapable of the reform our welfare system desperately needs.

Unlike Labour, we believe bold action must be taken to stem the growth of welfare spending, with people claiming benefits for ever milder needs.

People struggling with low-level mental wellbeing and neurodiversity need support. That’s why in Government we launched the Workwell scheme to support those struggling to stay in or re-enter work.

But right now, the incentives are wrong. Claiming disability benefits for these conditions has become too easy, and Labour’s job-killing policies have made welfare ever-more attractive. The Conservatives will change that.

That’s why the Conservatives will change the criteria to stop disability benefit claims for mild mental health and neurodiversity and reassess all existing claims. Every rejected claim will save taxpayers £10 for every £1 spent on reassessments.

It’s clearly the right thing to do, and it’s part of our plan to make £7 billion of welfare savings by ending access to sickness benefits for low-level mental health problems like anxiety.

Welfare must be a safety net, not a lifestyle choice. People struggling with their mental wellbeing need support and work. Only the Conservatives have a plan to fix our broken welfare system and get Britain working again.