'£400 BILLION On Welfare... It’s Unsustainable' | 'System Is Totally STRETCHED'

Añadido: 2026-05-30

[00:00:00]Let's speak with Annabel Denham, senior political commentator at the Telegraph.

[00:00:03]Another journalist with a a great work ethic. I know you're not afraid of long hours, Annabelle. Um, it's in your blood to aim for perfection. You like diligence. You like things done correctly. Um, and that's why you essentially have a job and have been employed all of your adult life. Would that be fair? Sorry, I'm blowing a lot of smoke there, but you take the point.

[00:00:23]>> You are. I welcome the flattery in.

[00:00:26]Um, and naturally I return the praise.

[00:00:30]Um, but yes, no, aside from maternity leave, uh, which is a different sort of work.

[00:00:35]>> What I didn't know about get denim off.

[00:00:38]She took time off when she had babies.

[00:00:42]>> Well, look at what is happening to our fertility rate, Ian.

[00:00:45]>> That's very true. Yeah.

[00:00:46]>> Having more babies, otherwise our worker to gray ratio is going to deteriorate and fast.

[00:00:54]>> Well, we've got a problem here, haven't we? Because we have we're slowly getting to that stage of one in six youngsters will not be in work education or training. At the moment it's still over a million. I mean it's the figures are shocking.

[00:01:05]Oh I mean they are they're absolutely terrifying because we know that if young people are out of employment it has a permanent scarring effect over the course of their lifetimes. It'll mean uh lower average earnings over the course of their lives. it'll make it a lot harder for them to actually ever get a foot on the ladder. uh you know trapping people in this cycle of dependency on the state and so we have to find a way to address this problem and let's see you know I commend Alan Milbour for his broadly accurate diagnosis of the problem this week but what we need to see the recommendations which we're told will be um published in September and I hope that he is going to be bold in in in the recommendations that he makes and that He's, you know, he's going to accept that we have created a system where the incentives are skewed, where there isn't, uh, you know, a strong enough encouragement for people to get into work, and where unfortunately it's too easy for people to live off others, you know, live off the taxpayer, live off the state. And I I thought it was interesting the upshot of and again there's more detail to come as as we read and and look at the significance of this report and whether the government do anything about it because that's always K's reports tend to have a great habit of costing six figure numbers.

[00:02:27]They take a year, two years, whatever to compile and then they're just sort of they just quietly disappear somewhere and you think well what was that all about? But what we do know from this is that Mr. Milbour seems to be saying that yeah there is a problem with young people but it's not necessarily their fault. And I wonder, you know, we've seem to have medicalized quite a lot of normal life these days. And I think the the spectrum, if you like, of what was one, you know, what people would call mental health, you've got sort of mild anxiety at one end and then sort of full-blown general uh genuine neurological issues at the other. Um much in the same way as, you know, what is sexism or racism today wasn't sexism or racis racism in the 70s. what was anxiety in the 70s or the 80s or even the 90s is now a full-blown mental health issue. So we young people probably genuinely believe it is and I think that's the problem. I it's not that they're all making it up. I think based on their their own parameters of what is mental health, they believe they have a problem and that just could be anxiety. It just could be a worry. But it will be defined and described as a mental health issue, even a crisis sometimes.

[00:03:36]>> Well, I think two things are happening.

[00:03:38]The first is that as a society, we've come to lose any sense of the idea that work is good for you. Um, and at the same time that if you have mental health issues that precludes you from work. We don't seem to push the message enough I don't think that if you are in employment then it provides you with structure. It gives you a sense of purpose. It gives you an income and it can be really beneficial. And some of you know the labor big beasts of previous decades did make this point.

[00:04:11]Individuals like the late Frank Field for instance was adamant that you know there was dignity in work. Um whereas now I think you have a lot of young people who are simply unwilling to do the sorts of jobs that were once considered you menial work lowkilled work that was once considered a right of passage. And the second issue I think is that we do medicalize and pathize absolutely everything now in our society and I it's surely it's going to be very damaging. Now undoubtedly something needs to be done about mental health services in the NHS. There are many people who aren't able to access the treatment that they need. But at the same time, I think that we are telling people that they have a condition, a condition which means that they can't work, that they can't participate in normal life perhaps. Um when actually perhaps that isn't the case. And there's been this enormous sort of dilution of terms such as autism and ADHD. there's been a massive increase in the number of people who are getting diagnosis for these conditions um you know being signed on to out of work sickness benefit disability benefit as a consequence and you know that in addition to potentially not being in the best interests of some of those individuals it means that we're not able to give specialist care to those with the more severe symptoms. So you have parents of children who've got very uh severe autism for instance who are having to navigate these cfgar systems to get EHCPs for their children perhaps at school and they're really really struggling um because the system is totally stretched and you know at the end of the day the government has a finite amount of money.

[00:05:55]It doesn't behave like that very often, but it does. And we cannot be in a situation where within the next 5 years, we're spending400 billion pounds on welfare. It is simply unsustainable.

[00:06:07]They're going to have to wait find ways to make cuts and they're going to need to do it soon because look what's happening with the national debt. Look at what's happening with the tax burden.

[00:06:17]You know, we are, I think, teetering on the edge of a cliff here. But don't worry, Annabelle Denham, because everything's going to be ticky boo because there's a new kid in town called Andy Burnham, and he's going to be sitting there picking the curtains for number 10 in about 3 weeks. Uh, so everything's going to be fine because he's got a big idea. he's going to make everything good again and neoliberalism is dead and everything's been wrong.

[00:06:42]Despite the fact that he was not only a subscriber to um other forms of ideology like Blairism and even a nod to fatism, despite the fact that he didn't just join up with that, he shouted about it from the rafters. But he's back with a different idea apparently. We don't quite know what it is. It's just different.

[00:06:59]>> Well, yes. I mean, this is the ultimate problem, isn't it? that Tony Blair has made another one of his uh interventions which has been very astute in my view just like uh his comments about net zero last year and our approach to decarbonization. You know, governments do need a coherent analysis of the country's problems and a serious strategy for addressing them. And I think it's depressing that none of the leaders of any major party, nor indeed any of the leadership hopefuls seem capable of matching Tony Blair's intellectual clarity, whether or not you agree with his conclusions. And Andy Burnham is insistent that he has the diagnosis and the solutions for all that ails Britain. But it's all, you know, he doesn't seem to have any fullyfledged um fully developed ideas in terms of how we're going to tackle our ongoing malaise. And the the problem Karma had, well, one of the problems that Karma had was in the years up to 2024, he focused on how to win. and he didn't seem to give any thought or consideration to how to govern. So the moment that he ended entered into number 10, he just carried on carrying the Ming vase and he didn't set out strategy, he didn't set out a vision or an agenda and he very quickly lost the faith of the parliamentary labor party and indeed the British public because he was buffeted by events. He was guided by polls, you know, sort of by public opinion and look at the mess that Labour now finds itself in. And there's nothing that Andy Bernham has said that has led me to believe that he won't find himself in precisely this situation a year or so from now if he does find a path number 10.

[00:08:42]>> Well indeed and this sort of you know king of the north and this I I've never and I'm not making a a party political point genuinely objectively intellectually I cannot see what to coin a phrase I can't see what all the fuss about Andy Bernham is. I I don't understand. I mean, as a as a local MP, I'm sure he was great. You know, he would maybe made a good job at health secretary back in the day. I don't really remember much about that. Is what his greatest hits were in the health department. But this sort of perception that he's somehow the savior of something. I I cannot find and I promise you I've looked. I can't find what that's actually based on. It seems to be based on nothing more than a sort of an illusion, a perception that has sort of fast become a reality. But for what reason?

[00:09:27]>> Well, polls suggest that he is the country's most popular politician.

[00:09:31]Again, that that's slightly baffling. I suspect he benefits from not being in Westminster. He is slightly separate from the swamp and specifically the Star administration. So, he is able to be a politician who is on the left of British politics. Um, who it doesn't people he doesn't have that association in people's minds. Then you have the Manchester miracle. Well, you can sort of debate the accuracy of some of the claims um and specifically his involvement in Manchester's prosperity, but undoubtedly there are pockets of Greater Manchester which have really prospered over the last few years and have seen heavy investment, state investment for instance, and growth and growth in productivity and those sorts of things. So, you know, if you're in Manchester and you're feeling the effects of it, perhaps you would feel um some you view Andy Burnham very favorably. Um but I think that that has its limitations because it partly relies on handouts from Westminster. Now, what is Andy Burnham going to do if he is in number 10 and he has uh regional mayors up and down the country asking him for handouts? At some point, he's going to have to say no because money will quickly run out. Um, remarkable how many Labour MPs you'll speak to who will say if Andy Bernardon had run in Gorton and Denton the bi-election which saw Labour shunted into third place then he would have won. And there does seem to be this sort of um credulous kind of belief that um he really is the savior of the Labour party and I suspect that they're going to be disappointed if he does get to Downing Street. Well, we will see and it's not long away until we find out the results not just of that uh bi-election but of course what then happens next with the L labor leadership one. Um Annabelle, thank you for being on with us. Have a lovely weekend. Annabelle Denham, senior political commentator over there at the Telegraph. This is the makerfield bi-election we're referring to there 18th of June and these are the candidates. Jake Austin, Liberal Democrats. Count Binface, Count Binface Party. Andy Bernham, the Labour Party.

[00:11:40]Dan Clark, the Libertarian Party. John Dier, Independent. Ed Gmel, Climate Party. Paul Gould, Independent. Alan Howling, Lord Hope, the official monster raving looney party. Robert Kenyon, Reform UK. Robert Powell, Protect the Wild. Rebecca Shepard, Restore Britain.

[00:12:00]Sarah Wakefield, Green Party. Peter Ward, rejoin EU and Michael Win Stanley, the Conservative Party.