“The narrative behind it is: your only purpose is productivity,” May Gabriel, a senior organiser at the patient advocacy organisation Just Treatment, told the Big Issue. “That’s a dangerous rhetoric anyway, but to bring it into psych units is really scary.”
Mikey Erhardt from Disability Rights UK warned that both policies are evidence of a “dangerous” mindset.
“The messaging behind both [policies] is ‘if you’re out of work because of health-related issues’, it’s a personal failing. It’s all on you as an individual’,” he warned.
“There’s no accountability for the state, for employers, for policymakers. We’ve built a world that is incredibly hostile to disabled people and people with long term health conditions. Yet we’re not saying: ‘why are people in these circumstances unable to work? Instead, the dominant narrative is that if you can’t work, there’s something wrong with you that you need to change on a personal level.”
How is the Labour government tackling joblessness?
The government wants to plug the so-called “fiscal black hole” in the public finances and bring down long-term unemployment.
The weight loss and job coach plans are part of a drive to kill these two birds with one stone.
According to the Institute for Fiscal Studies, the DWP is projected to spend £63bn by 2028-29, a jump from £48bn for 2023-24.
Tightening conditionality, Kendall says, could bring the bill down: “The benefit system can have a real impact on whether you incentivise or disincentivise work.”
This is a common claim in British politics. Earlier this year, then-chancellor Jeremy Hunt called for a “carrot and stick” approach to pushing benefit claimants into work.
But last year the DWP’s own research concluded that sanctions actually decreased the rate at which benefit claimants moved into higher paid work, while the rate at which they moved into any kind of paid work was “not greatly affected”.
What’s more, it can take a severe toll on people claiming benefits. Big Issue has previously reported on the “traumatic” appeals process endured by people wrongly denied benefits.
Just Treatment’s May Gabriel spent three years in and out of psychiatric wards. Society “forgets and doesn’t want to acknowledge” how unwell people can become, she said.
“During that time, had I felt at all pressured to get back into work, it would have just been so detrimental to kind of any recovery that I was making. There’s something to be said for teaching people in hospital skills, but these skills should not be linked to the benefits system at all.”
It’s not that people with mental illness or disability don’t want to work, said James Taylor, executive director of strategy at disability equality charity Scope. But punitive employment support as “bred a culture of mistrust and fear”.
“It needs to be easier for disabled people to get into work,” he said. “There is a lot of anxiety about being forced into unsuitable jobs or risking losing their benefits.
“We need to see evidence that work coaches being sent to visit seriously ill people works, and doesn’t cause distress.”
Getting people who can work into employment is a good thing. There are a record high of 2.8 million people out of work due to long-term sickness.
Given appropriate specialist support, it is possible that many could find sustainable employment, said Erhardt. But sending job coaches onto wards is not the answer,
“If you are a person experiencing mental ill health and distress and needing so much support that you are in hospital, you don’t need a CV checkup. You need funded health service and appropriate care,” he said. “Turning a hospital into a business setting is just a terrible idea.”
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