At 3pm on Tuesday 19 November, the House of Lords Economic
Affairs Committee, as part of its short inquiry on the
relationship between the welfare system and long-term sickness,
will hear evidence from:
- Prof. Ben Geiger, Professor of Social Science and Health,
King's College London
- Prof. , Professor of Economics
and Public Policy, King's College London.
This evidence session, which is open to the public, will be held
in Committee Room 4 of the House of Lords. It will also be
streamed live and on demand on Parliament TV.
Topics the committee is likely to cover in this session include:
- Impact long-term sickness has on the economy and the cost of
failure to remedy the problem.
- What has been driving the increase in long-term sickness
rates.
- Reliability of official statistics.
- How changing conditionality in the benefits system has
changed individuals' incentives to work over the years.
- Effectiveness and fairness of benefits assessments from the
perspectives of the individual and the state.
More about the Economic inactivity: welfare and
long-term sickness inquiry
As a follow up to its 2022 inquiry into economic inactivity, the
committee is carrying out a short inquiry on the relationship
between the welfare system and long-term sickness in Great
Britain.
Rates of economic inactivity – measured as a proportion of people
of working age – fell steadily from 2012, reaching an all-time
low of 20.7 per cent in early 2020. However, the COVID-19
pandemic saw a sudden and dramatic reversal of this trend with
rates of long-term sickness becoming an increasingly important
factor as the pandemic wore on.
The committee is seeking to understand the impact, if any, that
changes in the benefits system have had on trends in long-term
sickness and inactivity. It will hear views on what is being done
in this area, and what should be done, to mitigate elevated
levels of long-term sickness-related inactivity and the
associated rising costs of welfare.
