A report by Liverpool University Department of Public Health has found that a previous government’s cut to employment and support allowance (ESA) caused a rise in poverty and mental health conditions, but had no significant effect on employment rates. The report comes just months before a similar cut to Universal Credit (UC), which is allegedly intended to boost employment rates.
The university report looks at the effects of the 2016 Welfare Reform and Work Act , which stopped additional payments for new claimants in the work-related activity group of ESA. This meant that people who were assessed as being capable of preparing for work, as opposed to those in the support group who are deemed not to be able to work or prepare for work, received the same rate of benefit as people who were capable of work and receiving jobseeker’s allowance. The government claimed to believe that the reduction in payments would act as an incentive to finding work.
However, the Liverpool University study discovered that the effect of the cut was that an additional 31,000 people entered severe poverty and 92,000 developed mental health conditions, meanwhile there was no evidence that claimants were more likely to obtain employment.
The authors also pointed out that the savings in welfare payments had to be set against increased costs elsewhere in the system, which may outweigh any savings. These increased costs included the NHS, social care and local authority support.
Yet Labour have gone ahead, without any research to prove their case, with drastic cuts to the UC health element, which will mean that the majority of new claimants will receive only around half the rate of UC health that current claimants get.
When asked last week by the work and pensions committee if the DWP had modelled how many affected claimants would find jobs [Q114] , secretary of state Pat McFadden simply replied “I do not think you can say with certainty at the moment.”
In other words, no we haven’t done that.
And when asked [Q115] “Have you modelled the impact on those who do not get jobs? Obviously, they are getting quite a lot less income.” McFadden’s callous reply was: “For those who do not get jobs, they will get the support that they are entitled to going forward, just like anybody else in the benefit system.”
But thanks to Liverpool University, we now have evidence of the impact on those who do not get jobs, which we know will be the vast majority – increased poverty and increased likelihood of developing new mental health conditions.
Which probably explains why the DWP have done no modelling at all.
You can download the Liverpool University report from this page
