Will the Tories really dock benefits from obese people and those with drug or alcohol addictions if they refuse treatment? Even though David Cameron reaffirmed his commitment to the policy in his speech in Hove yesterday, anyone who is getting rather over-excited about it could probably expend their energy on something else as this looks suspiciously like one of those policy kites that gets flown from time to time. In the Times today, I point out that the idea cropped up several times under Labour as well as the Tories.
The reason that this latest incarnation of the ‘sick people, get treatment or lose benefits’ policy might not ever become a proper policy is that it’s just one of the proposals in the review that Dame Carol Black is conducting. Over the weekend, many were struck by the rather different language that Iain Duncan Smith used when he was asked about the plan on Marr. He said:
‘We’re not actually talking about saying we’ll take your benefits away from you if you can’t get yourself out of obesity. The problem we’ve got is that lots of people are either fearful or don’t want to take the help that’s there. We invest in the help, whether it’s to support people to get off drugs and we’ve changed all that, or whether it’s to get people into a particular mindset to reduce their weight because their health condition’s so bad.’
I understand that it was Duncan Smith who contacted Black and discussed the terms of reference of the review. A source close to the Work and Pensions Secretary says ‘he entirely supports the review’. The policy that Cameron announced is an idea that Black can either recommend or dismiss when she reports in July, long after a tough-sounding benefits announcement has served its purpose in the election campaign. Given it has been discussed and dropped before, there’s a chance that the policy will once again fail to make the final cut.
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