Wes Streeting has denied that Labour is “changing into the Tories” with its welfare reforms, amid speculation disability benefits could be cut.

The health secretary told Sky News’ Sunday Morning with Trevor Phillips that it is “not a Labour argument to say that we want people consigned to a life of benefit”.

However he refused to be drawn on how the government is planning to get more people into work, saying contrary to media reports of internal divisions the proposals have “not been discussed” in cabinet yet.

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Work and Pensions Secretary Liz Kendall is expected to unveil a series of measures to cut welfare spending next week, ahead of Chancellor Rachel Reeves’s spring statement.

The plan was thought to include cancelling an inflation-linked rise to the personal independence payment (PIP) – but this has reportedly been scrapped due to backlash from Labour MPs.

Mr Streeting would not be drawn on the supposed division – saying we will “have to wait and see the proposals” and the issue “hasn’t been discussed in cabinet”.

However he said that what the government is trying to achieve with welfare reform is to make sure the system “does the two things it needs to do”.

“One is to support people who cannot work to make sure they’ve got dignity, independence, and quality of life.

“And secondly, for those who can, to make sure that the welfare system isn’t just a safety net, that it’s a springboard back to work.”

Personal Independence Payment (PIP) is money for people who have extra care needs or mobility needs as a result of a disability.

Mr Streeting said one thousand people every day are signing on to PIP and that’s “the size of the city of Manchester” over the course of a year.

Asked if people get benefits too easily, the cabinet minister said there is a “presumption in favour of the benefits system” and people “need to have the right support to stay and work wherever possible”.

He rejected the claim that Labour is “turning into the Tories”, saying: “I don’t think that it is a Labour argument to say that we would want people consigned to a life of benefits and not able to go to work when we know that they can.”

Labour MPs fear disability benefit cuts

Former Tory chancellor George Osborne – the architect of welfare cuts during the coalition years – said on his Political Currency podcast this week that he resisted freezing PIP because he felt it was going too far.

Former Labour shadow chancellor Ed Balls, who co-hosts the podcast with him and is married to Home Secretary Yvette Cooper, also said cutting disability benefits is “not a Labour thing to do…it’s not what they are for”.

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The government’s motivation is the cost of long-term sickness and disability benefits for working-age people, which has risen by £20bn since the pandemic and is forecast to hit £70bn over the next five years.

Ministers have stressed there are currently 2.8 million people not in work due to ill-health, while one in eight young people are not in education, training or employment – prompting fears of a “wasted generation”.

Some of the changes being mooted include making it harder to qualify for PIP and increasing the rate of Universal Credit for those who are in or searching for work to incentivise employment, while cutting the rate for those judged unfit to work.

Many Labour MPs fear drastic cuts to the most vulnerable.

In a post on X, Barry Gardiner, the Labour MP for Brent West, criticised the bankers bonus cap coming to an end and said he doesn’t understand “why it is too difficult to tax a little more those having to manage on £19m a year” instead of cutting the benefits bill.

‘Overdiagnoses of mental health conditions’

Mr Streeting later told the BBC’s Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg that “the moral of the story is to wait for the plans” when repeatedly questioned on the future of PIP and other welfare benefits.

He also said he thought there was an “overdiagnosis” of mental health conditions with “too many people being written off” and not getting the support they need.

Laura Trott, the Tories’ shadow education secretary, refused to say whether she supported disability benefit cuts or not.

But she said the changes were not in Labour’s manifesto, whereas her party did have a plan to do this.

She told Trevor Phillips: “At the election, Labour said we could save no money on welfare.

“They’ve lost so much time when it was obvious to everyone this was a benefit system that needed to be brought under control after the pandemic.

“Labour is coming to this too late without a plan. They were clearly divided on it. And that is not what our welfare system needs.”

This week government figures are likely to show the prison population back to where it was before the last early release scheme. 

But even though hundreds of prisoners have served only 40% of their sentences, there is a cohort of the prison population who have served extended sentences, years beyond their minimum term.

IPP sentences (imprisonment for public protection) were introduced in 2005 and abolished in 2012. But the law wasn’t backdated, so the legacy of prisoners serving indefinite sentences continues.

“It’s broken me as a man,” says Andy Logan. The burly 45-year-old from Kent has spent most of the last 20 years in jail on an IPP sentence, now he won’t leave home without his mother.

“I don’t go out, I’ve got no social circle,” he says. “I’m not in no family photographs, it’s like Back To The Future when he gets erased from the photos, I’m not there. I’m a ghost – I’ve been a ghost for 20 years.”

He was given IPP sentences twice, for two cashpoint robberies where he showed his victims a knife but didn’t use it. The minimum terms for each crime were two-and-a-half years and three years, but each time he spent far longer behind bars, the first time four years, then seven years. But that wasn’t the end of it.

After his release, Andy’s IPP hung over him. He could be recalled for any misdemeanour, including drinking too much alcohol, taking drugs, or missing probation appointments.

Over the next eight years he was recalled six times and would spend months behind bars waiting for a decision. His recall prison time alone has amounted to nearly four years. Twice the recalls were later deemed “unjustified”.

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“I started my sentence with people who murdered people – and some of them got out before me,” says Andy.

“I lost all hope. I thought I’d never get out. I took drugs for four years. I exploded in weight. Self-harm started happening and I’d never self-harmed in my life.”

Andy lifts up his sleeve to reveal a red scar. “That one, I nearly did the artery on my last recall. I was just so frustrated I wanted to die.”

His lawyer Catherine Bond says he was often recalled for minor breaches.

She said: “One was in 2020 – Andy does struggle with alcohol addiction. He had started drinking more at that point.

“He kept his probation officer informed, but his probation officer recalled him anyway, and the parole board found the recall was unjustified because although there was alcohol use, that doesn’t necessarily equate to any increased risk.”

Each IPP recall is ‘re-traumatising’

Ms Bond says the recalls have damaged Andy’s mental health.

“Each time you go back in there you don’t know when you are going to get back out so the whole process is re-traumatising, and I think it can make it more difficult for people to resettle when they get back out so each recall can increase the risk of further recalls,” she said.

But she also has IPP clients who’ve never been released – one jailed in 2005.

“It was a robbery – threat of violence. I’m not minimising that in any way but 20 years on it’s totally disproportionate and these are people’s lives,” she said.

“Of course, they’ve done something wrong but effectively it is the misfortune of having committed an offence at a particular time… meant they are in prison for this excessive amount of time.”

The number of unreleased prisoners on IPP has fallen from 5,000 in 2015 to 1,180 in early 2024. Around 700 of those have served 10 years longer than their minimum term.

The number recalled is rising with over 1,600 currently back in jail, mostly for licence breaches. The average time spent imprisoned on recall has risen dramatically from 11 months to around 26 months.

Andy is so fearful of recall, he doesn’t go out without his mother Betty. As Betty drives him to meet his probation officer, he says: “What if someone takes a dislike to me and says ‘who are you looking at?’ and makes an allegation against me – I’m in prison. So, I’m just terrified.”

But Andy hopes this could be one of his last visits to probation. Until recently, any IPP prisoner would have to wait at least 10 years after their release from prison before their licence could even be considered for removal by a parole board – but in February this year that time period was reduced to three years. For Andy that means in the next few months he could finally get off it.

A Ministry of Justice (MoJ) spokesperson said: “It is right that IPP sentences were abolished. With public protection as the number one priority, the lord chancellor is working with organisations and campaign groups to ensure appropriate action is taken to support those still serving these sentences, such as improved access to mental health support and rehabilitation programmes.

“An independent report from His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Prisons found the majority of recall decisions were necessary to keep our streets safe. However, to avoid waiting unnecessarily for parole board hearings, eligible IPP prisoners can now be considered for release earlier after a thorough risk assessment.”

The prison population is bursting and is set to run out of space within a year according to internal forecasts from the MoJ. But some of those taking up space – probably shouldn’t still be there.

Damien Dalmayne, 17, is autistic. He also battles mental health issues that have left him unable to get out of bed and contemplating harming himself.

Warning: This story contains references to suicide

“There were thoughts of me doing stuff to myself. I never did but there were stages where it would get pretty hard and it really did get to that point that I was really considering it,” Damien says.

His depression spiralled during the COVID lockdowns and when he was 15 he was referred to his local NHS mental health team in Greenwich.

The paediatrician who made the referral recommended that Damien be seen “urgently”.

But Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) rejected the referral, instead referring Damien and his family to a local social services team.

Damien believes he was rejected because of his autism diagnosis.

“They [CAMHS] think they can’t help people with special needs. They think ‘that’s just a terminal illness’ even though it’s not,” says Damien.

In its rejection letter, Greenwich CAMHS agreed Damien “experiences emotional difficulties”.

But, noting his autism diagnosis, it suggested he see the area’s Children with Disabilities Team, rather than a specialist mental health service.

Crucially, his mother, Emma Dalmayne, says this meant they were unable to access specialist services like therapy to help Damien.

Autism and mental health ‘seen as separate issues’

Ms Dalmayne says a confused social worker called her after Damien’s referral was redirected to their team.

“They said ‘why have we been called?’ I said ‘I don’t know’.”

“CAMHS see autism and mental health as separate for some reason,” says Ms Dalmayne.

“If you’re not well you go to a doctor, you get help. But no, if you’re mentally ill and autistic and go to a doctor, you’re not getting anything. You’re told ‘well we can’t see you because you have a neurological difference’.”

The NHS trust responsible for Greenwich CAMHS said it is unable to comment on individual cases but stressed it does accept referrals for autistic children who have a “severe and enduring mental health need”.

However, it said children may be referred to other services “where referrals do not meet the threshold for CAMHS”.

CAMHS are run by different health trusts throughout the UK.

Ms Dalmayne says she has spoken to other parents with autistic children who have had similar experiences.

She says she knows one mother who is scared to tell her local CAMHS that her son has been diagnosed as autistic because she worries they will stop his care.

“It’s not an inclusive world. We don’t feel included at all,” says Ms Dalmayne, who is also autistic.

Damien believes NHS services don’t think autistic people can engage effectively with therapy.

“It’s not like just talking to a wall. They [autistic children] will end up listening and if they can they will end up talking.”

He says his experience with CAMHS left him feeling “inhuman”.

Damien ended up using his disability benefits to pay for private therapy.

“If I had waited probably six months [longer to get therapy], I probably wouldn’t be here. They [CAMHS] really put my health at risk,” he says.

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Oxleas NHS Foundation Trust, which administers Greenwich CAMHS, said: “Currently, just over 16% of our CAMHS caseload includes children and young people with both an autism diagnosis and a severe and enduring mental health need. This does not include children and young people either waiting for or currently being assessed by an autism diagnostic service alongside CAMHS.

“Should individual circumstances change, re-referrals can be made. CAMHS is just one part of a much larger collection of services delivering emotional health and wellbeing support and services to children and young people.”

People with autism more likely to experience mental health issues

Sky News tried to get a clearer picture of autistic children’s access to CAMHS across the UK, but when we requested data from health trusts, the majority did not disclose the number of referrals and rejections for autistic children.

We did learn of the serious pressure facing services nationally, with data showing total referrals to CAMHS had risen by 60% between 2018 and 2023. Rejections from CAMHS were up by 30% across the same period.

While it’s difficult to get a sense of the number of autistic children accessing CAMHS, autistic people are more likely to experience mental health problems than people who aren’t autistic.

Sky News spoke to one CAMHS nurse anonymously – we aren’t identifying the health trust she works for.

She said nationally it’s a mixed picture in terms of the level of care autistic children receive.

“We [CAMHS] certainly don’t do enough for children that have been diagnosed with autism in terms of their post-diagnostic support.”

She says she has witnessed preconceptions about autism among staff that can lead to autistic children not getting the care they need.

Skills ‘aren’t consistent’ across health service

“Some people [working in CAMHS], sometimes might tend to say ‘well it’s [their issues are] because of their autism’ as opposed to thinking well actually they might be autistic but they can also have a mental health difficulty that can be supported,” says the nurse.

“A child that has autism and mental health needs, that’s not going to be solved by social services, they need mental health support.”

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She says skills aren’t “consistent” across the health service and that autistic children can be at a disadvantage if their behaviour means more traditional forms of talking therapy aren’t appropriate.

The nurse continues: “I’ve known it happen where people say ‘oh this person is not engaging’ so they get discharged.

“Sometimes therapy is not always helpful, then it’s about different, more holistic ways to support children and support behavioural changes.

“I do think there’s a need to increase skills within CAMHS absolutely. [Staff] recruitment and retention has been difficult across the board.”

Ms Dalmayne is campaigning for better access to CAMHS for autistic children, her biggest fear is that autistic children and adults are hurting, and even killing themselves, if they can’t access mental health support.

“It makes me feel we’ve got to do everything we can to change it,” she says.

Anyone feeling emotionally distressed or suicidal can call Samaritans for help on 116 123 or email jo@samaritans.org in the UK. In the US, call the Samaritans branch in your area or 1 (800) 273-TALK