JUDGES are helping drive Britain’s ballooning disability benefits bill by widening who qualifies for support, a report has claimed.
Appeals are allowing claims to be, in effect, reassessed, according to a think tank, leading to a sharp rise in people receiving benefits such as Personal Independence Payment.
The Policy Exchange says more than 1,000 a day are now claiming PIP, with the fastest growth among young people and those with mental health conditions.
However, tightening just one PIP mobility rule and returning certain claims to pre-pandemic levels would save nearly £750million, the think tank says.
It also pointed to a surge in taxpayer-funded interpreters used in welfare appeals.
Spending by HM Courts & Tribunals Service on translation and interpretation is up by 80 per cent since 2020/21, reaching £12.8million a year, the research suggests.
Backing the report, former justice secretary Sir Robert Buckland warned the system “absorbs a breathtaking amount of public expenditure and is clearly unsustainable”.
He said the power judges now have to interpret eligibility rules should be “returned to the lawmakers”, rather than welfare policy being reshaped through the courts.
The report’s author Jean-André Prager also said: “The appeals system has become a substitute for good decision-making rather than a check on it.
“This report argues for a reset.”
A Government spokesperson said: “We’re fixing the broken welfare system we inherited, including through a package of measures to tackle the backlog of people waiting for a work capability assessment and save nearly £2bn by the end of the decade.
“This is on top of changes to Universal Credit to narrow the gap between what people receive for being unemployed compared to long term sickness and the Timms Review which will make sure PIP is fit and fair for the future.”
