Former chancellor Sir Jeremy Hunt has called for people to be stopped from applying for benefits over the phone as part of efforts to tackle the “mushrooming” number of recipients since the pandemic.
Speaking at the Edinburgh International Book Festival, Sir Jeremy said the UK could save more than £50 billion a year if benefits spending was reduced to 2019 levels. He also argued that those with “moderate” anxiety and depression should be given treatment rather than being “parked” on benefits.
Welfare reform key to economy
Sir Jeremy, who served as chancellor and health secretary in Tory governments, stressed the need to reduce the country’s benefits bill. “If we got the welfare bill down to 2019 levels it would save more than £50 billion a year, that’s a lot of money,” he told the audience.
He said increasing welfare spending is a “problem that really started in the pandemic”, noting that benefits spending had been reducing prior to 2019. “We’ve had this mushrooming since the pandemic,” the former chancellor added.
Treatment for mental health conditions
Asked what should be done, Sir Jeremy said: “I think you should say for moderate anxiety and depression we’re not going to park you on benefits, we’re going to give you treatment, which would be a fraction of the cost.” He also said that “we should stop people applying by telephone” for benefits.
His comments came as he argued welfare reform is key in improving the country’s economy. “It cannot be right that in the UK we are signing off 1,000 people every single day and saying, ‘not only do you not have to work, but you don’t even have to look for work’,” he said. “That is a crying waste of talent.”
“The majority are now off for anxiety and depression, and we should be saying to people with anxiety and depression not ‘we’re going to put you on benefits’, but ‘we’re going to treat you’,” he added. “Because when I was health secretary every doctor I spoke to said people with anxiety and depression need social contact, but if you put them on benefits you are excluding them from the world and probably making their condition worse.”
Energy policy and oil drilling
The former health secretary, who is still a Conservative MP, insisted: “It is not very compassionate to park someone with mental illness on benefits so they don’t work for the rest of their lives, it is the worst possible thing you could do for their mental health and their future.” However, he stressed he was “very proud” of the UK’s welfare “safety net”, as he said: “I am not arguing for one moment that we shouldn’t be helping people who need it.”
Sir Jeremy also argued that the Tories should have done more for “cheap energy” rather than just “clean energy” when they were in power. He said: “I’m really proud of the fact that we have decarbonised our economy more than any other major economy, we don’t use coal to generate any of our electricity, that is a positive. But if my government, or the administrations I was in, made a mistake it was that we shouldn’t just have thought about clean energy, we should have thought about cheap energy as well. And we now have the highest energy prices in the developed world.”
The former chancellor went on to argue that drilling for oil and gas should be allowed in the Rosebank and Jackdaw fields in Scottish waters. Consultations on both developments have closed, with the UK Government considering if consent should be granted. Sir Jeremy said that “of course” the projects should be given the go-ahead, saying: “When you have got this instability in the Middle East we should be tapping into our own energy as much as we can, and that’s even before you talk about all the jobs in the oil industry in Aberdeen.”
