OPINION: We are now paying nearly £140billion a year to see communities slip back into worklessness, ill-health, and social breakdown
There is concern that governments have relied on migrants instead of training UK workers (Image: ANDY RAIN/EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock)
I founded the Centre for Social Justice over two decades ago to tackle the deep roots of poverty in Britain. As leader of the Conservative Party, I had frequently visited areas left behind by society, where addiction, family breakdown, severe indebtedness and educational failure were rife. I was particularly struck witnessing individuals, generations of families, indeed entire communities retreating from the world of work and into a spiral of economic dependency.
Our answer to this problem came in 2009. In those days, the state paid over £74billion every year on non-pensioner welfare, funding a mess of 51 different benefits that stripped those trying to work of over 90p in every extra pound they earned. We designed Universal Credit and a programme of radical reform to clean up the mess. It worked. Between 2010 and 2019, the number of workless households was driven down to a record low, over 1,000 jobs were created every day and the number of children growing up without seeing a parent go out to work in the morning fell by three quarters of a million. One million more disabled people entered work, while youth unemployment was cut in half.
In short, intergenerational worklessness was being rooted out and the emerging “underclass” we had identified was being raised to independence and self-reliance. In today’s money, almost £28billion was taken off the benefit bill, but more importantly, lives were transformed by all the advantages that come with a job. Then Covid arrived. The very shock that burnished Universal Credit’s reputation as a modern benefit, able to withstand seismic economic events, revealed cracks throughout the rest of the welfare system. The explosion in mental health-related claims continues to test the assumptions that held UC together. Subsequent decisions have compounded the problem, with conditionality weakened and face-to-face assessments all but phased out.
Despite the ballooning bill – up £50billion in real terms since 2019 – successive governments have either ducked the problem or reached for hurried savings without a serious plan for reform. Previously, we fought against unemployment but now the battle line is arrayed against benefit dependency and economic inactivity, almost all allegedly health related. The 61% increase in incapacity claims since 2019, fuelled by soaring mental health-related benefits, has produced a crisis of “hidden unemployment”, with nearly seven million people in total out of work and on welfare today.
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Sir Iain Duncan Smith is one of Britain’s greatest champions of welfare reform (Image: AFP via Getty Images)
This is despite all of the evidence, as acknowledged by the NHS, that the routine, activity and rewards of a job both support and safeguard mental health. Second, we now have a web of benefits with an assessment system that punishes participation, and unguarded health-related top-ups that can raise benefit income to over £16,500 more than earnings from the average part-time job, have all coincided to produce a new benefit trap. Layers of entitlements and exemptions have distorted the simplicity of Universal Credit and allowed people to live more comfortably on benefits than in work.
Third, the report shows that this crisis extends beyond the benefit system. The truth is that successive governments have used welfare over decades to compensate parts of the country for economic failure rather than creating the conditions for prosperity. Ministers have repeatedly pulled the easy lever of immigration rather than providing a better deal for left behind communities. Just one in five added payroll jobs in the decade to 2025 went to British nationals, while broken forecast models have hidden the costs.
Welfare reform, immigration and regional growth must now be treated as parts of the same challenge. We are now paying almost £140billion per year to see the same places I visited 20 years ago slip back into worklessness, ill-health, and social breakdown.
Although the future is far from certain as we enter the age of AI, we begin that transition with millions already languishing outside the labour market. The next stage of welfare reform will be no easier than the last, but it is growing more urgent by the day. The CSJ is developing reforms capable of ending the crisis, restoring sustainability to the welfare state and transforming the lives of millions of people across Britain. We have proved before that change is possible. We must now find the courage to finish the job.
– Sir Iain Duncan Smith is a former Conservative leader and founder of the Centre for Social Justice
Sky News viewers fume ‘it should be illegal’ in furious Labour bias row
The complaints followed Yvette Cooper’s appearance on the programme.
Yvette Cooper was interviewed by Labour peer Ayesha Hazarika on Sky News (Image: Sky News)
Sky News was flooded with complaints after Health Secretary Yvette Cooper appeared on the programme on Sunday (October 18). Cooper, who is married to Good Morning Britain presenter Ed Balls, discussed various issues as she was interviewed by Ayesha Hazarika. Hazarika questioned the Labour politician about the current investigation into whether the NHS records of a man killed by a tiger at Yorkshire Wildlife Park last week were accessed inappropriately. They also spoke about the war in Ukraine, with the politician revealing that the government has taken a “different view” to the crisis than that of US President Donald Trump.
But it was the Sky News Sunday Morning presenter that sparked outrage, as Hazarika is a Labour peer.
One argued that it should be “illegal” for someone working for a political party to be interviewed by another who openly supports that party.
Others believe that politicians should not be permitted to pursue careers in broadcast journalism, as it undermines impartiality.
Additional viewers were confused by Cooper addressing Hazarika as a “journalist”.
“This is mental. It is completely and utterly mental. This should literally be illegal. It is not unreasonable to ban politicians from being broadcast journalists FFS,” one fumed on X.
The bias accusations continued, as another said: “It’s a joke. Nobody from either House should be presenting news/politics on any channel, go do your own podcast if you must.”
A third added: “She’s a Labour peer and should not be interviewing her!! Typical mainstream drivel.”
A fourth weighed in: “Ayesha is a journalist? Which paper or news outlet did she do her apprenticeship or grad scheme on? Where did she do her NCTJ, her undergrad or post grad degree or qualification? I know she has a law degree & did a comedy course but the journalism training must have passed me by.”
Someone else claimed: “If this was a Tory MP being interviewed by a Tory peer on GB News, there would be outrage of impartiality from everyone.”
During the interview, Cooper said people “need to be sacked” if patient records were accessed wrongly. William Chapman was mauled to death last week after he jumped into a tiger enclosure at Yorkshire Wildlife Park.
Shortly after, Yorkshire Ambulance Service Trust said there may have been two separate incidents involving two members of staff who accessed, or attempted to access, medical information “without a legitimate reason to do so” following the incident.
Cooper said: “I take this extremely seriously. I know there’s a specific investigation going into that case, but we just need to be absolutely clear.
“No member of NHS staff should be accessing records that they do not need to see for medical care and reasons, simply for something to do with voyeurism or what is in the news, or any of that kind of reason.”
She added: “We have to have firm action against these people. Should be if there are breaches, then people actually need to be sacked.”