Research links increase in ill-health to rising benefit claims, just as government prepares ‘catastrophic’ cuts

New research links a significant rise in sickness and mental ill-health since the start of the pandemic to an increase in the number of people claiming disability benefits, just as ministers prepare to announce significant cuts to that support. 

The research provides fresh evidence for disabled people and allies fighting the cuts, which have been described this week by claimants who contacted Disability News Service (DNS) as “simply unjust” and “absolutely catastrophic”.

The report shows clear evidence of rising working-age mortality rates and levels of mental ill-health, and a huge increase in the number of sickness absence days per worker since 2019.

Its headline conclusion was: “Mental health has worsened since the pandemic. This is consistent with rising disability benefit claims for mental health.”

It found that most of the 4,400 extra deaths rates were “deaths of despair” – those attributed to alcohol, drugs and suicide – which rose by 24 per cent in England and Wales in 2023 compared with the 2015-19 pre-pandemic average.

The research also showed there had been a “big rise” in the number of people on hospital waiting-lists since 2019.

And there has been a 5.5 per cent rise in working-age mortality rates when comparing the 2015-19 average and the figures for 2023, and a 36 per cent increase in the number of people in contact with mental health services between 2019 and December 2024.

The researchers said that sickness absence days per worker were 37 per cent higher in 2022 than in 2019, which was “further evidence to support the argument that population health has worsened”.

The research was published this week by The Institute for Fiscal Studies, with support from three other respected organisations: Joseph Rowntree Foundation, The Health Foundation, and Economic and Social Research Council.

Iain Porter, senior policy adviser at Joseph Rowntree Foundation, said: “This is clear evidence of a deterioration in mental health in the population, which goes some way to explaining rising health-related benefit claims. 

“Greater openness about mental health has helped many people to live with conditions which were once hidden, but the rise in deaths of despair also shows that reducing stigma does not eliminate the most serious consequences of rising mental ill health. 

“This trend is real and growing, and we need our government to look carefully at the health of the nation, rather than relying on benefit cuts to fix the problem.”

The report, The Role of Changing Health in Rising Health Related Benefit Claims, comes just as the prime minister, Sir Keir Starmer, and other ministers have been attempting to persuade backbench Labour MPs to support plans to cut spending on personal independence payment (PIP) by £5 billion.

Most of Sir Keir’s benefit-related comments to Monday evening’s meeting of backbench MPs are believed to have focused on separate reforms and cuts to out-of-work disability benefits, rather than PIP.

But reports suggested that he also failed to respond to a Labour MP with a disabled daughter who said cuts to PIP would have a significant impact on his family.

Sir Keir has also been due to meet groups of Labour MPs in Downing Street yesterday and today (Thursday) for six “welfare roundtables”.

In prime minister’s questions yesterday, Sir Keir talked about supporting disabled claimants “back to work” when challenged by Liberal Democrat leader Ed Davey, even though the bulk of the planned cuts are to PIP, which is available to those both in and out of work.

Labour’s Richard Burgon then asked: “Instead of cutting benefits for disabled people, would not the moral thing – the courageous thing – to do be to make a real tough choice, and introduce a wealth tax on the very wealthiest people in our society?”

Sir Keir then spoke of a “moral imperative” to “help those who want to work to get back into work”, and added: “We have raised money through the energy profits levy, taxing non-doms and air passenger duty on private jets, but this is not a bottomless pit, and we must kick-start growth to secure the economic stability that we need.”

Meanwhile, disabled people have continued to contact DNS to express their concerns, anxiety and distress about the proposed cuts.

One disabled woman said, in an email to her MP that she copied to DNS: “These proposed cuts and reforms are simply unjust.

“I am exhausted, and I am afraid. I feel sick with worry and I feel a total loss of control over my life. I just want to live.

“One cruel push of cuts, and one stroke of bad luck, and I risk depending on already strained food banks, or simply not having enough to pay my bills.

“PIP is the one thing that is giving me some actual life, and it was an awful, emotional ordeal to get. But I am grateful for it. 

“I don’t know where I would be without it. It has given me small pleasures in life, like a cafe date with my husband, books to read, or taxis to see family when I am able.

“I do not have the fight in me that I used to have, so please know that this is me begging you to do something to prevent both these cuts and the proposed idea to make disabled benefits harder to get.”

Another disabled woman told DNS: “These cuts will be absolutely catastrophic for disability claimants, myself included. 

“I am utterly petrified as I rely on my disability benefits to live and manage my condition.

“I go to bed at night worrying myself sick about proposed cuts. 

“It is significantly impacting my health.”

Credit for this article goes to John Pring with the Disability News Service