Keir Starrer: Labour wird erneut mit der Senkung der psychischen Gesundheitsvorteile untersuchen
https://www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/article/keir-stamer-welfare-reform-anxiety-mental-health-hcv25h6dm
Von StGuthlac2025
Keir Starrer: Labour wird erneut mit der Senkung der psychischen Gesundheitsvorteile untersuchen
https://www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/article/keir-stamer-welfare-reform-anxiety-mental-health-hcv25h6dm
Von StGuthlac2025
38 Kommentare
He may as well just hand the keys to Nigel Farage if he’s going to make decisions like that.
Just tell the public it’s this or raise taxes and I assume most people will tell you what they prefer and make your decision based on that rather than going head first into it!
You physically can’t you’ve got a party that will not do any benefit cuts.
Why on earth, everytime we are in a pinch, we take from the weakest or poorest or most ostracised in the community?
I thought this was supposed to be a left wing government? Where is the legal and taxable weed? Where is the redistribution of money via a wealth tax? Where are the corporate tax reforms? Where are the additional taxes on gambling and cigarettes? The windfall taxes for these companies making record profits and still raising prices? Why can’t they close some of these tax loopholes?
I’m tired of this.
The number of young people off work with anxiety and related issues is unsustainable.
Clearly, there are people with serious, crippling anxiety who can’t work and need alot of help.
This will sound insensitive but there is also an area where people will take the path of least resistance, so if they can survive without working then they will. This can be addressed with support from the employer right through to someone being told to get a grip.
Anxiety is part of life and not an excuse to withdraw from society and the government is right to push back on this.
Jeremy Hunt of all people did make a good point about this recently. The budget for monetary benefits for people with mental health concerns is far higher than the budget for mental health services, despite the data showing that people who are [eventually] able to access these services having significantly better outcomes than those who can’t. Additionally, the estimated cost to the UK from mental health is in the region of 300 billion – far higher than government spending on the issue. It would make sense to invest significantly more on the treatment budget so that we can help people and reduce the need for ongoing monetary benefits.
Sensible reform to the mental health benefits is needed. Many people are able to take advantage of lax system. I know an entire family that have been on benifits their whole lives, none are sick or disabled. They go on multiple holidays per year, drive around in brand new cars, have all the time in the world for themselves.
Meanwhile, people like myself and my wife who are actually disabled don’t take any benifits and have worked hard our whole lives, to pay for people like them.
We don’t *want* mental health benefits – we want a „Labour“ movement that works for the labour force to create jobs that don’t rapidly strip every aspect of mental health away.
If they actually bothered to look into the root cause then I could agree.
Little chance of getting their own home, little chance of a well paying job, a health system that has collapsed, a government that wants more and more just to pass it up the chain, scummy child’s argument level of politics, prices for everything spiralling up. A boomer generation determined to destroy everything the previous built.
It is not hard to see if there is nothing you get nothing
The problem at the moment is that the economy is slowing and unemployment is up to 4.7% now. The social welfare bill will likely rise with the unemployed rate.
What they could do however is reduced immigration and create a tighter employment market. The worst thing they could do is increase taxation on workers again and slow the economy yet further.
There a lot of toxic people about and these people are having children. This children have mental health issues. People need cheap mental health practitioners.
What they need to do is invest more in Mental Health services!!!!
This cunt will do absolutely anything other than taxing billionaires or closing corporate tax holes.
And again, the Labour Party decides to treat the symptom rather than the cause. Do they need consultants to come in and do analysis?
Always disabled benefits on the chopping block and never the corporate benefits that get cut isn’t it.
It’s always talk centred on cutting benefits and never about tackling what’s causing the mental health crisis or the state of mental health care.
Anyone remember the bloody howls of when Tories cuts caused the death of many disabled people?
Im certain we had Labour MPs calling for prison for those deaths, guess Labour now really do support Tory policies.
Can someone tell Kier that the Tories already cut this to the bone and made it harder than ever to claim. Maybe focus on a different group for raising funds?
It’s less that I disagree with this (I’ve not thought through it yet) and more my knee jerk reaction being – „so this is the one they choose to cut“. Keep the triple lock, keep the WFA, raise the child cap, cut mental health benefits.
If your getting pip for „anxiety and depression“ it’s co morbid with somthing else like O.C.D or numerous other problems that can haveca serious impact on your life.
It’s like he’s actively seeking to be replaced as leader
Cutting the money spent on minor things will mean more for the genuine and serious cases. I know more than one person who laughed about getting themselves signed off with ‘stress’ when they actually just went and worked for cash somewhere else and took the sick pay as well. If a doctor will sign them off so easily, it doesn’t take long to have a medical record full of mental health related issues that could go towards proving a claim for a benefit.
My sister was ’signed off‘ from work for ’stress‘ on full pay for six months basically because her attitude is awful and everyone was fed up of having to deal with her. Her boss called her into the office to have a conversation about ‚issues‘ and then she just walked off the job and got her doctor to sign her off ’sick‘. Her attitude to anyone else who ever was absent or sick was always that they were lazy or faking it. Its far too easy to just claim ‚unprovable health issues‘ and then cost businesses or the state huge amounts of money. She was eventually paid off to get rid of her. Obtuse, entitled, narcissistic twat.
What a stupid party. They create an environment for people to lose jobs and then cut benefits for people out of work.
Try living off crushing anxiety and depression and the medication they give you with side effects after side effects. I have prescribed 3 psychiatric medications, a cocktail that has eased the symptoms it means that I would find it very difficult to function in a 9-5. P.s up until recently I worked all my life. Now I can’t even get a cleaning job and I am only 51!
Considering the state of the jobs market this seems the wrong target ATM.
Also the specifying of mental health shows all this ‚mental health is health‘ bollocks is just virtue signalling.
Having a supportive, inclusive workplace can make a huge difference here. I am fortunate enough to work somewhere with excellent support and I know this has at various points made the difference between me being able to continue working through poorer mental health times and needing time off.
Improved working environments isn’t a magic bullet for all but if getting adjustments, support and basic understanding didn’t feel like a battle already, I feel that relying on benefits would be less appealing.
I can’t read because it’s paywalled – so maybe it’s more nuanced than the headline, but removing money from people who are off work because they’re mentally ill isn’t going to magically make them able to work. It’s just going to make their mental illness worse.
At this point, Labour are just Cameronite Tories. If they actually funded the NHS and mental health services in particular, the number of people who can’t work as a result of mental illness would go down. I have a friend who has waited more than a year for talking therapy. Then he’ll likely get 12 seasons and be discharged.
Yeah that’s the solution. It’s not that if you have a mental health issue you get placed on a waiting list for 3 years only to be given 6 CBT sessions and then get discharged. To get anything more you have to be on a full mental breakdown in A and E.
Ah yes, once again, we take from the sick and disabled whilst rewarding the rich.
Funny this is in the same week they annoucne they’re lifting the child benefit cap too… just announce the disabled cull already and get it over with!
The issue is people are punished for working and punished for not working and the easier way out (mentally not financially) is to not work. The government has made it painfully clear that they do not value working people outside of their ability to pay tax and make incredibly wealthy people even wealthier.
People’s mental state is screwed because you cannot get on in life especially early on unless you live with your parents until very late in life even then getting a mortgage is still a ridiculously hard thing to do.
If we taxed the top 1-2% of earners properly, like we used to, we wouldn’t have to make such choices.
Or you know, here is a crazy idea we could be funding support so that people get help before they become incapacitated. I wonder what funding that is aimed at preemptively tackling mental health issues such as accessible support and affordable housing would do to the productivity of people in this country…
The biggest net drain is billionaires in this country but no let’s bicker over the worst off and a system that’s barely limping by.
Starmer really has been speedrunning his own downfall these last couple months
Its fucking astonishing to me that we always punch down rather than going to the source of the problems….. there’s a mental health crisis cause people are absolutely broken, our system is broken and only seems to function for the rich.
Let’s looks at the reasons why there might be a mental health crisis !
Housing is unaffordable
The job market is the worst its been since 2008
Wages are shockingly low
Child care is eye wateringly expensive
Trying to see your doctor is so difficult
Food prices through the roof
Gas and electricity still extremely expensive
Local councils offer less services for more money
I could go on but all of this stacks up and to some people it can be one step too far before they break. The social contract has been broken and working hard doesnt mean shit these days.
I have issues of my own but im very lucky that ive managed to always hold down a job, buy a car and own my home but that doesnt mean that everyone else can. Ive been incredibly lucky to have an extremely supportive parent and partner…. and I likely would have been fucked without them.
I used to agree with this stance until it affected me directly.
Maybe invest in mental health services and help people to be well enough to return to work. It feels like yet again they are choosing to go after the most vulnerable people at the bottom, instead of targeting those holding so much of the wealth.