Sunak’s ‘sick note’ mission is bad enough – but there’s worse to come for disabled people

A revolution in the employment support we’re providing for people with health problems and disabilities,” was how Mel Stride described the programme he was overseeing as Rishi Sunak’s work and pensions secretary.

Speaking at the Conservative Party conference last year, he went on: “It pains me to think there are so many people being left on benefits who want to work and who could be thriving in work. It’s a waste of human potential.”

But how sincere was that? Because, you see, those quotes of his don’t exactly sit well with the decision to close the £100m Work and Health Programme currently operating in England and Wales.

On Sunday evening, it emerged that the government programme is slated to come to an end in the autumn, a decision that appears to fly in the face of the mission the self-same government is on to reduce the record levels of economic inactivity plaguing the British labour market and holding back economic growth.

The PM last week joined the fray, with Sunak railing against what he characterised as Britain’s “sick-note culture” while pledging to take what are these days called “fit notes” out of the hands of doctors. You know, the people who are actually qualified to assess people’s health and thus their ability to work?

Charities have already expressed fears that an attempt to force 400,000-plus sick and disabled people into the workplace could leave them in a desperate situation if the threadbare safety net that sustains them is withdrawn.

James Taylor, executive director of strategy at Scope, the disability equality charity, described what the prime minister said as a “full-on assault on disabled people”: “These proposals are dangerous, and risk leaving disabled people destitute,” he said.

Planning to remove a scheme to help them to access the labour force in the midst of this crusade? It’s like adding injury to injury. If you’re wondering about where the insult comes in, there were plenty of those in the sick-note speech, which could be summed up as Sunak wagging his finger at we wobbly people while saying “you’re all lazy b******s”.

MP Stephen Timms, chair of the work and pensions committee, told one Sunday newspaper that while the Work and Health Programme was far from perfect, it had at least managed to help “quite a large number of people to return to work”. Which is what the government keeps telling us it wants to do.

Disabled people need help with that, and the more seriously disabled they are, the more help they need. Work is far from easy to find when you have a disability, and the workplace is frequently an unfriendly place when you get there. A survey for Scope found that disabled people are nearly twice as likely to leave their jobs as non-disabled people, while nearly a third (28 per cent) reported being the victim of discrimination from colleagues or managers.

Set against that, the reported plans to shutter this programme feel particularly bizarre; an example of the DWP cutting off disabled people’s noses to spite its and their faces. The department’s response when I raised the issue struck a similarly dud note.

“The Work and Health Programme is part of a much wider offer to help people with disabilities and long-term health conditions start, stay and succeed in work,” a spokesperson said. “Our £2.5bn Back to Work Plan will help over a million people, including those with disabilities and long-term health conditions, to break down barriers to work.”

You probably spotted the problem immediately. I know I did: there is no mention of the programme in that statement, which attempts to float a big number as a means of diverting attention from the issue at hand. When I get responses like that, I find myself shaking my head. Someone up there really does think we’re that stupid. Needless to say, when I raised this issue with the statement, I did not get a response.

Now, I agree with the government that Britain’s economic inactivity is a problem. I write about the economy, where its malign effects are easy enough to see and contribute greatly to the torpor UK plc is struggling to shake off.

But the reasons for it are complex and multi-faceted, and they require a thoughtful and multi-faceted policy response. Sunak, however, chose to attack with soundbites, hectoring, tired old tropes and a nasty display of vindictiveness aimed at a particularly vulnerable group of people.

It is notable that Andy Street, the energetic Tory mayor of the West Midlands who is staring defeat in the face in next month’s election, started this week with a broadside against his own government. Street urged Sunak & Co to dial back on the “posturing” and the “rhetoric”, if they want to win the coming general election, and to focus instead on delivery.

Street told the Financial Times they should take lessons from the way he conducted his two successful election campaigns, and spend less time on, for instance, putting out anti-green hot air. “It’s not about philosophy,” he said, “it’s about getting stuff done.”

Street, of course, was a successful businessman in a previous life, the former boss of John Lewis. Delivery is what matters in business. Street could easily have used the plans to close a scheme that has actually delivered coming hot on the heels of Sunak’s ugly posturing as a case study.