The Bishop of London asked a question on the need to tackle root causes of ill health on 18th March 2025, following a government statement on welfare reform:
The Lord Bishop of London: My Lords, I welcome the Government’s focus on and increased investment in supporting people back into good work, and the proposed safeguards through the right to try guarantee. However, I am intrinsically wary of attempts to address the drivers of ill health through the social security system, rather than tackling root causes. We do not know yet the content of the NHS plan. Supporting people who are currently claiming incapacity benefits into work will put considerable pressure on an already stressed health system. What steps is the Minister’s department taking to work with the Department of Health and Social Care to ensure that the right support is available for people with physical and mental health needs?
Baroness Twycross (Lab, DWP): I thank the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of London for that important question. I mentioned earlier that the prevalence of disability has increased. I have to correct that: the rate of prevalence has increased. Again, the rate of the increase of disability benefits has gone up by twice as much. If I have got that wrong, they will correct me again and I will read it out next time I get up.
On the question of health, crucially, we have invested almost £26 billion extra in the NHS, but change will take time. We intend to implement our reforms to PIP in November 2026, subject to parliamentary approval. To reassure the right reverend Prelate and anyone listening, everyone claiming PIP will continue to receive it until they are reassessed and their eligibility changes. We will always seek to protect the most severely disabled.
In the meantime, we are looking to do a couple of different things. We are trying to get early intervention to stop people falling out of work, and we are about to launch our health accelerators, which will support efforts to tackle economic inactivity through getting the NHS to shift to prevention. We are trialling in some of our pilot areas how exactly we can bring together the NHS and employment support to address that.
The right reverend Prelate raises an important point. One of the challenges for us is that there are things that will need the NHS to be sorted out. There are other areas where a range of different types of support could enable people, even now, to get into work. We are determined to do both.
The Church of England in Parliament 
You must be logged in to post a comment.