Disability Rights UK have described a Channel 4 programme, Britain’s Benefits Scandal: Dispatches, as an “insult to the millions of Disabled people on the poverty line.”
Fraser Nelson, who led the programme, reports that Britain’s benefits system is “the greatest challenge the new government faces”.
Throughout, he speaks to people who have experience with the benefits system, including those who receive state benefits, a GP, a nurse and former benefits assessor, charity leaders, and ministers, including the DWP Secretary of State, Liz Kendall.
The programme has been accused of inciting hatred towards benefits claimants and demonising disabled people. The benefits information provider Benefits and Work said the programme is “shamefully inaccurate and prejudicial” and that Channel 4 “should be – but won’t be – ashamed.”
Channel 4 told us that one of the key purposes of the film was to “highlight the difficulties and stigma that some people can face and to give them their voice in the discussions around the benefits system that they are rarely given.”
In the programme, Nelson reports that 7% of the working age population are claiming long term sickness benefits, and the numbers are rising, with nearly 900,000 set to claim benefits by the next election.
Nelson says there are more than 800,000 vacancies in the UK, more than almost any time since before the pandemic. He reports that increasing numbers of people being signed off work are driving these vacancies, many of whom have mental health problems. Indeed, Nelson states that two thirds (69%) of people who apply for long term sickness benefit apply on the grounds of a mental health condition, such as depression or anxiety.
Throughout the programme, Nelson speaks to a number of benefits claimants. In Manchester, we meet Anthony who has been out of work for a number of years due to mental health problems and alcohol and drug dependency. Anthony has previously been issued with a ‘fit note’ which allows him to claim around £100 a week, but he is seeking long term sickness benefit which would double his benefits allowance.
“If Anthony’s application is successful, there will be no follow up appointment, no one checking on his health, and no one encouraging him to work,” Nelson says. “He’ll get the money, but will he get the help he needs?”
Nelson questions throughout the documentary whether the benefits system is therefore doing enough to encourage people who may be able to work eventually to return back to employment. He also speaks to Gavin, a taxi driver who lives in Shoreham-By-Sea. Gavin says he was given long-term sickness benefits after he underwent open heart surgery, but when he was ready to return back to work, he was met with a brick wall. It’s been three years since Gavin first contacted the DWP about going back to work, and he is still yet to have his work capability assessment.
Nelson says the DWP stopped reassessing people’s work capability during the Covid pandemic and it has never properly restarted.
The government has already begun to lay out plans to ‘get Britain working again’. As part of this, the Secretary of State, Liz Kendall, says the new Labour government will ‘revolutionise’ the benefits system.
“I believe in work and that everyone who can work should work, but my argument is people are crying out for help and support, and it’s the government’s duty to deliver that,” she told Nelson.
One of the first steps to this ‘revolution’ is addressing the “sick note culture”, as former Prime Minister Rishi Sunak described it.
Under our current system, doctors prescribe fit notes (previously known as sick notes) which determine whether someone can work or not. Nelson says doctors are handing out nearly a million more fit notes than they were five years ago.
One GP, Dr James Howarth from Boston, Lincolnshire, says fit notes come up in around 5 to 10% of his appointments. He raised concerns about doctors being the one to offer these fit notes, saying: “I don’t think it’s right that we have a role in long term sick notes, we aren’t the DWP police, we’re not there to tell them they can’t have a sick note, we’re there to help them to stop being sick.”
Mel Stride, the former Work and Pensions secretary, told the programme that 94% of fit notes state that the person is not able to work at all.
“Then they drift further along the benefits system until they’re in this incapacity benefit cohort, where they are basically left alone, and then you have really lost somebody in terms of being help them back into work,” he said.
Nelson says over 1,500 people per day are being signed onto sickness benefits. Since 2010, the approval for long term sickness benefits has more than doubled to 18%. He says this may because “the process has become easier or because successive governments have relaxed the criteria.”
Sarah, a nurse who until recently worked as a DWP assessor, said she is concerned the figures are rising due to the benefits criteria being easily accessible on the internet. The programme then featured so called “sickfluencers” who post on social media, giving people advice on how to navigate the benefits system.
Disability Rights UK (DRUK) questioned why Channel 4 decided to ‘blame’ people for offering support rather than successive governments who have created the complicated system.
In a statement, the charity said: “Why is blame placed at our feet for helping one another access the support we need to survive, not the complex bureaucratic barriers placed in our way by the social security system?
“We are living through a pandemic handled so harmfully that millions have become Disabled as a result. When investigating a rise in sickness benefit claims, why does the media turn to struggling Disabled people and not the government that allowed this to happen?
“Finally, DWP’s own numbers state £23 million of support is unclaimed each year. Seven out of 10 PIP appeals succeed, after initial rejection. Yet, the media turns to stigmatise Disabled people on benefits…? Shameful.”
In response, Channel 4 told us: “Channel 4’s Dispatches has a history of investigating serious issues with the benefits system and holding the Government to account on this. This investigation into the long term sickness benefit system revealed problems recognised by experts and politicians across the political spectrum.
“The film was based on deep and meticulous research, but the story was told through those affected: claimants, assessors and ministers all reflecting on a failing system. We wanted to give voice to claimants, place them at the centre of the film, as they are too often erased from the debate. The film argued that millions are signed off sick and then largely abandoned and ignored.
“Throughout the film Fraser emphasised that this is a story of good people caught in a bad system. Hearing from them directly we are hoping to tackle damaging stereotypes into which this debate too often descends. Part of the purpose of the film was to highlight the difficulties and stigma that some people can face and to give them their voice in the discussions around the benefits system that they are rarely given.”
