NSUN would like to add its voice to those of the many groups working on mental ill-health, distress and trauma who have expressed their profound disappointment with the Autumn Budget since its publication last week. Despite reductions to Universal Credit monthly debt deductions and the raising of the Carer’s Allowance earnings limit, the Budget makes no significant improvement to the lives of those living with mental ill-health, distress and trauma, and furthers harmful and dangerous policy.
With this Budget, the Government has doubled down on deeply troubling rhetoric around work. While claiming to outline the ‘foundations for change’, the Budget actually underscores a worrying similarity between the current administration and the last: a clear inability to think about care and support without linking them to economic productivity.
Mental health does not feature heavily in the Budget. Increases in NHS funding are promised, but there is no indication of whether mental health services will receive their fair share, and there is no clear mention of resourcing for Mental Health Act reforms. When it is mentioned, however, the Government’s commitment to ‘tackling the root causes of mental health problems’ cannot be separated from ‘supporting people to remain in, return to or find work’.
In the same section, the Government promises £26 million for new mental health crisis centres ‘to reduce pressure on A&E services’ without elaborating on the kind of care that will be available at these facilities or who might be sent there.
We remain wary of similarities in this rhetoric and that used to justify ‘high intensity use’ programmes that place more emphasis on reducing A&E demand than providing people with the care they need.
Elsewhere, there is a shocking lack of clarity on whether or not the Government will proceed with the proposed reforms to the Work Capability Assessment (WCA) announced by the previous administration. The Government simply promises to ‘set out reforms to health and disability benefits by early 2025 to ensure the system works to support people who can work to remain in or start employment’.
Along with the Disability Benefits Consortium, we strongly oppose any measures that would tighten social security sanctions, decrease entitlements and force claimants into work. We assume that we will also hear more about the Government’s approach to Personal Independence Payments (PIP) in early 2025, another area of social security where we are left without a clear idea of whether the Government is going to carry forward any of the previous administration’s plans for reform. We stand in solidarity with those who are left feeling anxious about the continued confusion and uncertainty over the long-term plans for reform to social security.
Finally, the Budget also reaffirms the Government’s commitment to widely criticised plans first brought forward by the previous administration to allow the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) to access data from social security claimants’ banks in the name of fraud prevention.
NSUN will continue to vocally oppose mass financial surveillance powers, and any other proposed measures that could deprive Disabled people and those experiencing mental ill-health, distress or trauma of the support they need. We remain active in a coalition of civil society organisations, led by Big Brother Watch, campaigning against the Fraud, Error and Debt Bill.
While the Autumn Budget is disappointing, it is also vague. Aside from the previously mentioned reductions to Universal Credit monthly debt deductions and the raising of the Carer’s Allowance earnings limit, it’s worth stating that nothing in the Budget means that immediate changes will be made to social security entitlements.
NSUN will monitor the progress of proposed reforms to the social security system, posting updates as and when we have them.