More than 8,600 people in Brighton and Hove were classed as economically inactive because they were too sick to work, according to government figures.
They account for 4 per cent of the workforce – or 1 in 25 – with Brighton and Hove among the parts of the country with the lowest levels of economic inactivity through sickness.
The figures were published by the Department for Work and Pensions today (Wednesday 19 March) as the government continued to make the case for welfare reform.
Ministers said that a growing number of people have become trapped on benefits since the coronavirus pandemic and the cost to taxpayers needs to be brought down.
But in the House of Commons on Monday (17 March) the Green MP for Brighton Pavilion, Siân Berry, said that constituents were writing to her in terror about the proposed changes.
During questions about work and pensions, she said: “For weeks, the government’s active trailing of welfare cuts has generated genuine fear.
“Disabled people in Brighton Pavilion are writing to me in terror.
“Will the Secretary of State apologise for this and reassure the public that benefit changes will not take place this calendar year or without parliamentary votes in this house?”
Sir Stephen Timms, the Minister of State for Social Security and Disability, said: “First, I recognise that there has been a good deal of anxiety and I regret that.
“But there will not be long to wait. The proposals will soon become clear. The honourable lady will welcome a great deal of the changes that we want to make.”
The latest figures covered 200 parts of the United Kingdom including almost all “upper tier” councils in England such as county councils and unitaries like Brighton and Hove.
Only 25 had a lower percentage of working age people – 16 to 64-year-olds – who were economic inactivity through sickness.
While Brighton and Hove was 175th on the list, East Sussex ranked 129th, with 55.76 per cent, and West Sussex was 151st, with 4.98 per cent.
Labour force figures published separately suggested that in Brighton and Hove alone about 40,000 people in total were economically inactive. More than 5,000 were caring for someone else.
The highest level of economic activity through sickness in the UK was in Clackmannanshire, in Scotland, where the proportion was 17.4 per cent.
The highest level in England was in Blackpool – 16.9 per cent. In Wales, the highest figure was in Neath Port Talbot at 16.53 per cent. Across Northern Ireland, it was 10 per cent.
The Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer, wrote in The Times today: “We … have to be clear-eyed that the system is actively incentivising people towards higher incapacity benefits and away from work.
“This is not just unfair to taxpayers. It is also a bad long-term outcome for many of those people.
“The deal is simple. We need to give people the best possible circumstances to thrive at work. But those who can work should.”
This is a dodgy story to comment on, mostly because we all wonder when it’s OK to call in sick or not to work, but you also have to watch out for the shouting. .
Sometimes you go in anyway, because you need the money.
If you can call in sick and still get paid, well lucky you. (Not me, sadly.)
If I did that, then my regular employers would soon find someone else.
If I make the effort on my feeling-glum days, I generally find I feel better about myself afterwards, So that’s one plus we should acknowledge. .
But, for sure, that ls just me – and we should be able to talk about these things, and without someone trying to close the conversation down. Those paying high taxes will also resent financing those on benefits, if they aren’t told of the circumstances or of genuine need. This is the rabid stomping ground for Daily Mail writers and readers.
The sort of job you do is either rewarding emotionally, or a welcome challenge, or else it can be repetitive, mundane, and soul destroying. Some people have to carry on in a dull job because of the monthly pay cheque or weekly wage. As a self employed person, I get to pick and choose my jobs, but I’m still often saying yes to crap work when I have bills to pay.
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In Brighton and Hove we also have high overheads, starting with rent or the price of beer. If you have a standard salary job, say as a schoolteacher, then you’ll be a lot better off if you live in Leeds or in a cottage in Cumbria – because of the lesser outgoings.
Every day I come home from work and think I had got ahead, and then I find, like last week, my water bill has gone up by 53% for water I don’t actually use. I’ve just spent the winter without heating my flat.
I’ve never claimed a single benefit in my life, or not since the state paid for my education, and I wonder if that’s where I’ve gone wrong. The elephant in the room is that we all know people who have milked the system, and some never seem to work.
As it is, I can’t hang around here, because I have work stuff to plan for the morning.
Who is the most trapped, those in work or those on the dole or on disability benefits?
In truth we have all reached some weird point in history. . Something has to change. There is so much resentment in the world right now. But it’s not actually about boats crossing the Channel or people signing on.
The problem is, as much as 90% of people on the PIP should legitimately get it, there is a good 10% who should not. And that’s money the rest of us pay that should be spent on better things. The vibe I get from the news is legit claims have nothing to worry about, BS I’m to anxious to work claims will hit the bin, and good.
Sounds like the government’s trying to find a new target demographic to turn the rest of us against and blame everything on. This time it’s the sick and mentally disabled.
People are getting sicker because life is getting harder. It’s time they stopped finding scapegoats in minorities, the poor or other people who can’t help their situation and start taxing the super rich according to their ever growing wealth.
There’s a school of thought that suggests that globally we are moving towards a jobless society, automation, centralisation, and the increasing use of tools like AI mean concepts like universal basic income need to continue to be explored.
Benefit fraud is officially 0.0005%! Or non existent!
It was mentioned last year on the Politics Live programme but hadn’t been mentioned since as it suits the narrative of giving the hateful something more to hate, such as people that can’t fight back and totally defenceless!
One thing about PIP, is that they should only be assessed by suitable medical staff; this is highlighted through the appeal success rate being really high.
Just get a job at BHCC – then you can skive and swing the lead to your heart’s content! WFH and huge pensions will be provided
They’re just a, lot of lazy good for nothing scroungers as are a large number of people on benefit. Face to face means test will bring out their acting potential and their so-called media fuelled ‘Mental Illness’ issues?
You sound just like weasley Wes Streeting who doesn’t seem to believe mental health issues are real.
Long and short of it that the tax take is falling and the sickness bill is going up. Too many claiming and not enough earning. Fewer people working means fewer people paying tax.
The country is running on payday loans already if we try and borrow more the cost will go up.
The workshy need to be identified and benefits cut. Genuinely incapacitated people should be protected.
Chris, we need to consider the Governments recent increase in National Insurance, this has hit business hard to a point along with general rises in costs there is no recruitment taking place and vacancies are no longer available.
A complete rethink is needed to get people into work, if this scheme gets the skivers into work, then great…
Do you know what it does to your mental health, to do back breaking work, day after day, month after month, year after year, decade after decade on poverty wages, wages that are officially half of what the government’s OWN official figure for poverty rate of pay?
Do you know what it’s like to get so little money, whether in wages or benefits, that you can barely afford even the most basic of existence!
New clothes are a luxury!
Putting the heating, is a luxury!
Sunday joints are a luxury!
A social life is a luxury!
Having the heating on is not just a luxury but unaffordable!
The Conservative Party destroyed our living standards, forcing us to take the biggest fall in living standards for 200 years! They should be jail for doing this to this nation, not carrying on living their luxury lifestyles!
The Labour Party has stopped being a Party for working people since Blair!
No Party represents ordinary people anymore! None of them, which is why our lives, are a living hell!
Some people think voting for other Party’s such as Reform will be on their side but that’s a joke! Reform is made up with extreme right wing ex-Tories who’d have the poor in workhouses and are the CAUSE of the extreme levels of poverty in this country, yet now they’re in the lovey dovey world of Reform who will be more sympathetic?
Get real!
A person has ust seems to have three choices nowadays!
1) Work 40 hour weeks to the point of exhaustion! Find you don’t earn enough to pay for all your basic bills! Slowly go insane!
2) Try to live on benefits. Find you don’t get enough to live on! Slowly go insane!
And
3) We all know what 3 is! 3 is the biggest killer in the UK now! Suicide!
What’s the answer?
It’s been like this for generations and will take generations to change! But we’ve got to want it and DEMAND it!
I just pray to win the lottery! I know it’s 84 million to one chance of winning! But that’s still better odds than any politician doing something for ordinary people!
So I pray to win the lottery so I can just get as far away from this hell hole of a country as possible! A country where the people have turned on each other and become hateful towards everyone, immigrants especially, immigrants who they BLAME them for their plight, when the blame for it lies squarely with politicians who don’t give a damn about ordinary people!
If they lived in our streets, our estates, live a year in our shoes, out lives would soon change!
But they don’t! So it’ll never change!
And as far as I’m concerned, every single, horrible thing in our society is down to one thing and one thing only!
We tolerate it!
Britain needs it’s French revolution, it’s storming of the Bastille badly!
They did in the 18th Century!
2025 and Britain still lives like it’s Dickensian Britain!
We need a revolution! We need to be governed BY the people FOR the people!
But that requires a spine!
And the British don’t have one anymore!
Aside from typing out essays on the internet how are bringing about this revolution?
Simon Philips
Wow, what an article…
In life, we make choices and make our own beds as they say.
I’ve worked the hours for poor pay, made do with what I’ve had but also found better pay and conditions and improved myself, but true, life is difficult and could be better, but it could be worse.
You say the Conservative Party destroyed our living standards, I don’t think that’s an arcuate assessment. When the Tories took over the running of the country back in 2010, we were just coming out the economic crisis, most of us knew, there would be cuts, history shows Labour have always overspent when in office and Conservatives always make cuts, neither governments seem to get the right balance.
Add to that Brexit and covid and you have the disaster we are all facing now.
Yes, we have three options, none of them them appealing but there we go…
well, at work i am always having seizures and falling onto the floor, because of my health and disabilities.
i still have to work over 40 hours a week, as i have always been refused benefits.
This is a lie. You get free prescriptions for a start if you have a seizure diagnosis. That’s a benefit.
And a free national bus pass, because you aren’t allowed to drive.
8000+ off sick, 4k as carers, so if i understand the article 40 k total. So what are the reasons for the other 28 k??
The whole crux of the matter is why is the country trying to save money in the first place as a country we’re not short of money and seem to find it to help out the world they’re just picking on the disabled first they came for the pensioners and no one spoke out , then they came for the disabled and no one spoke out who’s next for the chop we’re sending all this money abroad in overseas aid to countries like India who have a nuclear programme , North Korea who can’t feed their own people but can still build rockets etc , etc charity does begin at home I’m not saying we shouldn’t help poorer countries but not ever country that sticks its hand out
There’s some wisdom in a balance of isolationism. I think there is a reasonable debate; why international aid when we need national aid?
There’s a couple of different viewpoints on the matter, and makes for healthy discussion.
Some of the above should be told what it’s like living in Syria or Lebanon or Afghanistan or Gaza or Iran or Iraq or Nigeria or Sudan and I won’t mention a religion or this site will crash.
I’ve self diagnosed myself with 17 different isms so I don’t have to go to work any more and I’m disgusted by the government targeting people like me.
And another thing why are we poking our noses into the Ukraine russo war ? We’ve got a miniscule army not fit for purpose as some fat arsed American recently said haven’t we learned our lesson yet ? Not to keep involving ourselves in neverending wars without end we are no longer major players on the world stage apart from putting our boys and girls at risk , where will we find the money for this ? USA , France , Germany , the Maldives and all the former Soviet bloc countries on Russia’s doorstep should be sending their troops to sort it out you could have written that president starmer like President Blair would volunteer our brave service people
8000 isn’t really a lot considering there’s almost 300k living in Brighton and hove that is probably pretty normal to be honest I think that’s low considering how many elderly and sick there are in other places in the UK every refugee gets a free ride why not spread the love
“Brighton and Hove among the parts of the country with the lowest levels of economic inactivity through sickness.”
I can’t work as have anxiety and my kids have adhd. Hope Labour not going to cut my benefits !
That’s ok us tax payers will keep paying for you
