Sitting at home living on benefits is not very good for health, the work and pensions secretary have said before the launch of a welfare review. Working is actually better for health.
Damian Green will be launching a consultation on disability and sickness benefits on Monday. He will focus more on how people qualify for sick pay and doctors' notes, and review the controversial work capability assessments. Such will help determine whether disabled people are eligible for welfare.
The benefits mentioned are in reality, not benefits for health at all. Green himself promote working instead of resting at home and enjoy the benefits. This is to improve their health as well as for the government to spend less on benefits.
"In the long run there is nothing more expensive than saying to someone, 'Here's a benefit you can have for the rest of your life and we will ignore you,'" Green said in an interview with BBC Radio 4's Today program.
Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt highlighted the growing cost of long-term sickness to the NHS. He also suggested that those who went back to work actually had major health benefits.
England's Executive of Public Health Duncan Selbie would agree with Hunt. He said in an interview that health, well-being, and happiness were "inextricably linked to work." Selbie believes that people who are working have better health and it makes sense for the government to do all it can to support employers so as to close the gap in employment, disability and illness and then enable people to work when they can.
Green is determined for the reconsideration of the work capability assessment. He announced at the Conservative party conference that people having severe, long-term health conditions would no longer have to be reassessed. These group of people will still have benefits under the WCA.
The idea of halting cuts to universal credit was also dismissed by Green, as reported by The Guardian. The cuts will be made to the work allowance element of universal credit that will ultimately replace tax credits, which is possibly the way for receiving in-work benefits.
