End tsunami of sick notes, urges Duncan Smith as he criticises Labour reforms

Labour’s plans to cut the welfare bill do not go nearly far enough, the former minister who brought in the biggest reform of benefits since the 1940s has warned.

- DAVID MADDOX

In a week where Sir Keir Starmer’s government announced plans to remove disability benefits from an estimated 1 million claimants, former Tory work and pensions secretary Sir Iain Duncan Smith said more must be done to stop “a tsunami of socalled fit notes signing people off work forever”.

Writing exclusively for The Independent, Sir Iain also raised problems with a culture where young people leave school “and go straight to their sick beds”.

Sir Iain warned: “We must end the tsunami of so-called fit notes that sign people off work forever, instead encouraging GPs to use the ‘maybe fit for work option’. And we need to enlist employers and schools if we are to halt the number of young people moving directly from education to their sick beds.”

He pointed out that in “an increasingly dangerous world” where the UK is under pressure to invest more in defence, the burgeoning welfare bill is now unsustainable.