Our track record
- Created good, well-paid jobs. We have almost halved the unemployment rate and our employment rate is fourth highest in the G7, higher than the US, France, and Italy. There are nearly four million more people in work since 2010.
- Boosted pay packets. We have provided a £900 tax cut to almost 30 million people, as we work towards ending the double tax on work. The National Living Wage is now at record levels, ensure the lowest paid get a fair wage.
- Boosted the number of disabled people and people with health conditions in work: There are 2.2 million more disabled people in employment in the last decade.
- Reduced poverty and inequality. There were 1.1 million fewer people in absolute low income after housing costs in 2022-23 compared to 2009-10.
Our plan for welfare
We have a plan to ensure the welfare system supports more people off benefits and into work. We will:
- Reform how we assess someone’s capability to work. Over the last decade, the world of work has changed, yet the way the welfare system determines people’s fitness to work has not. Under the Work Capability Assessment, too many people are being written off as unable to work. That is why we are reforming the system so that benefit recipients with less severe health conditions are expected to engage with employment. The OBR has confirmed that this will reduce the number of people assessed as not needing to prepare for work by 424,000 by 2028-29.
- Improve the fit note system to stop people being written off as not fit for work by default. We will instead design a new system where each fit note conversation starts with an assumption of what work people can do with the right support in place, rather than focusing on what they can’t do. We are publishing a call for evidence on how the current process works and how it can better support people with health conditions to start, stay, and succeed in work.
- Review our disability benefit system to ensure that our support is fairly and accurately targeted at those who need it most. We will bring forward a consultation on the Personal Independence Payment (PIP). This will look at the accuracy of PIP assessments, making the system more individually tailored, and ensuring that it is more joined up with local services.
- Change the rules so that someone working less than half of a full-time week will have to look for more work. Before 2022 someone could work only 9 hours a week and remain on benefits without being expected to look for more work. From next month, individuals will be required to work twice as much (18 hours).
- Strengthen our sanctions regime to ensure unemployment benefit remain a safety net not a lifestyle choice. Anyone who does not comply with conditions set by their Work Coach, including accepting an available job will, after 12 months, haver their claim closed, and benefits removed entirely.
- Invest £6 billion in employment support to help people into work. This includes the Universal Support programme, which will match people with a personal advisor who works with local employers to identify jobs, and WorkWell, a new scheme connecting disabled people to the work and health support. Our new occupational health framework will provide expert advice and support to prevent people leaving work due to illness.
- Accelerate the final rollout of Universal Credit, moving all those left on outdated systems, such as ESA, onto the simpler dynamic benefit which eliminates the choice between work and welfare.
- Continue our zero-tolerance approach to fraud. We will introduce a Fraud Bill in the next Parliament to bring DWP’s powers in line with that of HMRC so we can treat benefit fraud like we do tax fraud.
In 2010 we called time on Labour’s something for nothing benefits culture:
- Labour’s welfare system saw some claimants receiving as much as £100,000 a year in income from benefits.
- Labour’s welfare system punished work – with claimants losing over £9 of every £10 extra they earned.
- Labour’s welfare system rose unsustainably with the bill for tax credits alone rising by 67 per cent.
- Labour’s welfare system meant millions of people were trapped on benefits.
- Labour’s welfare system saw children growing up in workless households with one of the worst rates in Europe.
- Labour have attacked universal credit from its inception and every Labour MP stood on a manifesto to repeal it and replace it in the 2019 General Election.
- Labour have no plan for welfare!
Before the pandemic, we were making significant progress on reducing economic inactivity - inactivity among working age people fell by 858,000 people, or around 100,000 people a year. Since the pandemic, inactivity due to long term sickness increased by 850,000, from around 2 to 2.8 million. The covid pandemic unwound a decade’s worth of progress.
That is why today we have set out a decisive plan that is a new Conservative welfare settlement founded on those lasting British values of generosity and compassion but also a system that is ambitious for all those who want to work hand for themselves and the greater good.
