Kemi Badenoch has branded Britain’s soaring benefits bill “economic suicide” while pledging to “draw a line” on which health issues the state treats as disabilities. The Conservative Party leader suggested that some people were “gaming” benefits rules to receive money.
Speaking at Glazier Hall in central London on Tuesday, Mrs Badenoch blasted a welfare culture so bloated that more than six million working-age adults are claiming benefits instead of being employed. She added: “This is completely crazy … We’re funding it by taxing businesses, taxing jobs, taxing wealth creators, the people in our country who get out of bed and make things happen. We’re making life harder for them. This is economic suicide.”
Mrs Badenoch claimed the system was not designed to handle “the age of diagnosis which we now live in”.
She said: “We will review every circumstance in which benefits are currently paying more than work.
“We will undertake a full review of the level and operation of the household benefit cap, which currently acts more like a sieve than a cap, because most people on benefits avoid it through one exemption or another.
“Exemptions like being diagnosed with anxiety.
“Being diagnosed with anxiety can be worth more than £20,000 to some families.”
Mrs Badenoch said the Tories’ review would be carried out “carefully over time” with input from “medical and employment experts” to ensure “we get it right”.
“Let’s get some hope out there. We are not the doom and gloom party, we are not the welfare party – that’s Labour,” she added.
Labour said the Conservatives “broke” the welfare system while they were in power and accused the Tory leader of sounding “delusional”.
Opposition critics attacked Rachel Reeves’s Budget last month after she hiked taxes by £26billion, including by freezing thresholds on income tax, which the Chancellor said would help improve public services.
The increases came in response to downgraded economic forecasts, but also a rise in welfare spending because of the abolition of the two-child benefit cap and the Labour revolt over attempts to curb the benefits bill.
Sir Keir Starmer was forced to abandon welfare cuts planned earlier this year in the face of a major backbench rebellion. However, the Government is carrying out its own review and has insisted it will press on with reforms to the system.
In response to Mrs Badenoch’s speech, a Labour Party spokesman said: “The Tories’ message on welfare is: we broke it, now put us back in charge.
“Kemi Badenoch is delusional and is treating the public like fools.
“Under the Conservatives, the benefits bill rocketed by £114billion and nearly a million kids were plunged into poverty.
“Now they want to pretend it didn’t happen.”
James Taylor, director of strategy at disability equality charity Scope, said: “The benefits system is complex and hard to understand. Deciding how disabled people are supported based on outdated thinking and flawed assumptions would be a recipe for disaster.
“It can be incredibly hard to know how to access support, and many disabled people give up. Many are reduced to tears, left ‘broken’, and have nowhere else to turn.
“PIP – the main disability benefit – exists because life costs more if you are disabled. Data on PIP finds only about half of applications actually lead to an award, and fraud is effectively zero.
“It’s therefore unlikely advice on social media is leading people to successfully ‘game’ the system.”