The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has been urged to strip benefits from anyone with an 'unknown' health condition. The DWP and Labour Party government has handed out £770m in benefits for 'unknown' health conditions.
Revealed: 151,850 Claimants with Unknown Conditions
151,850 people are receiving sickness benefit top-ups to their Universal Credit payments for 'unknown' conditions, a freedom of information request by the Conservative Party has revealed. It is understood that many claimants whose conditions are recorded as 'unknown' do not have a medical diagnosis.
Political Criticism
Helen Whately, the shadow work and pensions secretary, said: 'Over 150,000 people are getting sickness benefits worth £5,000 a year, and the Government has no idea why. There's no diagnosis on file and no evidence of why the benefit is being paid. This is taxpayers' money, but the Government is handing it out.'
'Labour has no grip on welfare spending. Keir Starmer is too weak to face down Labour MPs. Last year, they tried to make savings but ended up spending more. The benefits bill is out of control.'
Former Minister's Concerns
Sir Iain Duncan-Smith, the secretary for work and pensions between 2010 and 2016, said: 'Marking conditions down as 'unknown' is a cop-out. People know there are ways around the system and they chance it.'
'Much of this has gone haywire because they're not doing face-to-face assessments and officers aren't able to check. And what happens is, these things get abused.'
'The system overhaul needs to be done and done quickly. When I left, we had the lowest number of workless households since records began. All that we achieved was thrown away during Covid.'
DWP Response
A DWP spokesman said: 'No one can claim without the impact of their condition being assessed.'
'Where there is sufficient evidence a person's condition severely affects their daily life, their eligibility for benefits can be confirmed through a paper-based assessment alone. This is recorded on the paperwork but marked as 'unknown' in the data.'
'Everyone in this group has been properly assessed and found to need support. We have a robust process in place and thoroughly assess benefit claimants to ensure people can access the support they are entitled to, looking at the impact of a person's condition on their daily living.'
