The second part of this correction gets it wrong again - the 83% stat Milburn was referring to seems to come from 2019 research about the proportion of people showing some warning signs of poor mental health (e.g. feeling stressed, struggling with sleep) in the last year www.gov.uk/government/n...

Some really unhelpful comments in this interview with Alan Milburn, particularly: "Anxiety is normal. Depression is normal." And the claim that 83% of the population could be diagnosed with a mental health problem at any given time It's simply not good enough when stigma is rising again...

Job opportunity - we need a fab new colleague to do quant research on work, welfare and mental health within @kingscsmh.bsky.social (closes 8 Feb) This is funded until Apr/28, but we'll support you in bids to extend it - please do circulate to suitable ppl! www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DQD294/p...

Media & political noise about "overdiagnosis" has ramped up this year, crowding out more thoughtful & constructive debate about how we should respond to rising levels of mental distress. Mind CEO @drsarahhughesceo.bsky.social points us back in the right direction here www.hsj.co.uk/mental-healt...

Stacey from @changingrealities.bsky.social has written such an honest blog about why, even with awful trolling, she won’t stop speaking up for people living in poverty www.changingrealities.org/blog/why-i-w...

It's right to explore what's driving increased prevalence & what support people need. But as @johnharris1969.bsky.social says, in "a country in which questioning other people’s needs is almost becoming a national sport" the government risks stoking a toxic debate www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Surprising to see an institution with the impeccable moral integrity of FIFA toadying up to Trump

This is a welcome & reflective intervention. 'Overdiagnosis' is a simplistic & stigmatising explanation for what, in reality, is a complex interplay of health, social & economic factors. The focus should be on getting people the right support at the right time www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Huge moment to finally see the two-child limit scrapped. It has been a machine for driving up child poverty, which will cost us all more in the long term, scarring the lives of those directly hit by its cruel impact. Credit to everyone who has tirelessly campaigned for its end

Any genuine attempt to better understand what is going on around young people, unemployment & poor health is welcome, especially as an alternative to rushing to propose further benefit cuts Critical that this review gets some key things right though... 🧵 www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Powerful Sky News piece on the need for better support services for young people's mental health, based a new @mind.org.uk report Long waits for support are impacting young people's mental & physical health, as well as their education & employment news.sky.com/story/mental...

[email protected]'s response to Reform's proposals to "cut PIP payments to people with anxiety" in this BBC News piece: bbc.co.uk/news/article... So much of the political debate around PIP betrays a complete lack of understanding of what the benefit is for, who gets it & how it's assessed

PIP is assessed based on the impact of health problems & disabilities (often multiple & complex) on someone's ability to live independently Saying "we'll stop PIP for people with anxiety" just bears no relation to the reality of how the benefit operates www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/10...

Coverage of @mind.org.uk's new report on youth mental health Government plans for 50 youth hubs are welcome, but a serious response to the scale of the crisis requires services like this in every local authority, as part of a wider youth mental health strategy www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home...

Heartbreaking figures. The causes will, of course, be complex. But a caricatured debate about 'overdiagnosis' is a dangerous distraction when, as @mind.org.uk's @gemmabyrne.bsky.social says here, over half a million under-18s are on mental health waiting lists www.theguardian.com/society/2025...

Important work by @kslharrison.bsky.social of @citizensadvice.bsky.social - 'support conversations' between DWP & disabled people should about genuine engagement, not just process-driven compliance. That means being voluntary, empathic, flexible & holistic www.citizensadvice.org.uk/policy/publi...

Welcome intervention, commissioned by @debbieabrahamsmp.bsky.social's Work and Pensions Select Committee, to demonstrate that better employment support for disabled people could generate significant fiscal savings, without needing to rely on crude cuts to benefits inews.co.uk/news/politic...

After many years of hard-fought progress on attitudes towards mental health, things seem to be slipping Simplistic, often malicious, narratives about people's experiences & motivations, alongside the fallout of under-funded services, are increasing stigma www.theguardian.com/society/2025...

"Pushing people into insecure, physical, inflexible work when they are already challenged by disability or mental health problems is futile. These jobs don’t work and they don’t last" Spot on from @claremcneil.bsky.social - important work by @timewise.bsky.social www.thetimes.com/business-mon...

New Mental Health Act data out today: -52,000 detentions last year (similar to the previous year) -Black people 4x more likely than white people to be detained (up from 3.5x) -A 17% increase in Community Treatment Orders -Black people 8.5x more likely that white people to be on CTOs (up from 7x)

New @trusselluk.bsky.social data shows millions more people experiencing food insecurity than two years earlier If we want to understand the rising prevalence of mental health problems, we should start with the rocketing numbers of households facing inadequate social & economic circumstances

My final piece of work for @neweconomics.bsky.social was a collaboration with Camden Council & a brilliant team of staff there We ran a test & learn pilot to explore how to increase voluntary engagement with employment support among ill & disabled residents 1/3

Wrapping up at @neweconomics.bsky.social today after a really enjoyable two & a half years leading the social policy team Very excited to be returning to @mind.org.uk as head of policy, campaigns & public affairs in September Means there's a great job going at NEF: neweconomics.org/about/work-w...

BBC coverage of a powerful new report by @neweconomics.bsky.social's @hollies.bsky.social about the impact of temporary accommodation on children's mental health, with a focus on Southwark where there is one classroom worth of homeless children for every primary school www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

"The lesson Reeves will take from the HMRC release is that the rich did not run. But it should also be that knowing what the rich are doing with their wealth is politically useful" Great piece from @hollies.bsky.social of @neweconomics.bsky.social www.newstatesman.com/politics/eco...

NEW RESEARCH: The richest households in England will be eight times more likely to benefit from the government’s expanded programme of funded childcare hours. 1/8

A pretty hefty piece of @neweconomics.bsky.social analysis out today by me & @pollardtom.bsky.social, in collaboration with @jrf-uk.bsky.social, on the problems with free hours-based childcare system Labour inherited - & case for a more progressive alternative 👇[1/] neweconomics.org/2025/07/the-...

"We don’t cancel weddings months out because there’s a chance of drizzle - we shouldn’t restructure fiscal policy purely on the basis of a single number we know to be, at very best, an informed guess" Really helpful contribution from @andymacnaemp.bsky.social www.newstatesman.com/politics/eco...

Great @newstatesman.com piece by @neweconomics.bsky.social's Hollie Wright The "exodus" of the wealthy is being overblown & departures are often "more about 'perceptions of declining opportunity & social cohesion' than any particular fiscal measure" www.newstatesman.com/politics/202...

Why shouldn't someone assessed by DWP as too unwell to work & facing significant extra costs due to disabilities & poor health receive state support at least around the rate of a minimum wage salary? I spoke to Ian Collins on TalkTV earlier about (misleading) reports today on this subject

Over 1.6m children are now impacted by the Two-Child Limit - 11.6% of all children This is a cruel policy that unnecessarily drags children into deeper levels of hardship It needs to go, and the longer it is kept, the greater the scarring effects on children's health and education will be

New government data on the impact of the two child limit: 469,780 households now affected, with 1,665,540 children in those households Almost 40,000 more children affected since last year It's a child poverty machine & it will cost us all more in the long term - get rid of it

It seems completely reasonable to me that someone who has been assessed by DWP as being unable to work due to disabilities/poor health & as facing significant health/disability related extra costs should be supported by the government to have an income around the level of a minimum wage salary 1/2

I've been working with a brilliant team at Camden Council, testing & learning how best to reach out to residents to foster voluntary engagement with employment support If you want to find out more, sign up for this online event on 22 July at 9.30am www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/camden-emp...

This is nonsense. The impact assessment starts from an imaginary baseline incorporating reforms planned but never implemented by the previous government In the real world, the cuts that remain in the Bill will push around 50,000 disabled people into poverty www.theguardian.com/society/2025...

"the financial returns from well-targeted public spending are often far higher than our anaemic assumptions allow... A politics that always talks down the impact of spending ends up justifying stagnation" @neweconomics.bsky.social's @maxmosley.bsky.social www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

“What’s going on in the benefits system is symptomatic of an ill society where there is poor health, poor public services & a lot of poverty” I argue in this Chris Smyth piece that tackling the underlying causes is the only path to sustainable benefits savings www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/...

The responsibility for any damage to the government's economic credibility lies with those who tried to impose rushed & crude benefit cuts to hit a savings target, not those who rightly stood up to challenge changes that would have pushed even more disabled people into poverty

The cuts to Universal Credit for ill & disabled people that remain in this bill will be deeply harmful, but campaigners & MPs have forced a climbdown on huge swathes of the wider cuts that were originally proposed. You cannot deliver principled welfare reform to a predetermined savings target

The updated poverty impact assessment for the disability benefits cuts once again offsets the impact of not proceeding with the previous government's proposed changes to the WCA The impact of actual changes happening in the real world is likely to be closer to 250k people pushed into poverty

Now that the focus is on future PIP claims rather than those currently on the benefit, it's worth highlighting that the proposed assessment change is due to have a much greater impact on the proportion of people from this group who will miss out on support by 2029-30 as a result

Concessions for those already on disability & health benefits are welcome, and a testament to all the work that has gone into campaigning against these cuts But people who need support in future will face a much harsher and meaner system if the amended proposals are implemented

On Tuesday Parliament will vote on whether to cut health and disability benefits. This is a vital opportunity for this government to rethink these harmful cuts. Want to get your head around what the cuts would mean? Look no further 🧵 1/

I'm not sure "if you think about it, cuts to disabled people's benefits are basically the same kind of thing as minimum wage rises & free school meals" is a line that's really going to fly (from today's London Playbook)

This could be the fatal blow these cuts-posing-as-reforms deserve Supporting more disabled people into work is a welcome aspiration, but cutting benefits for this group to meet an imposed savings target, with no meaningful consultation, is neither supportive of nor justified by that objective

Looking forward to speaking at this on Thursday, sharing @neweconomics.bsky.social analysis on the scale & impact of the planned cuts, what's been driving increased claims, & whether benefit cuts, tighter eligibility & increased conditionality are good ways to cut costs (spoiler alert: they're not)

Good to see @neweconomics.bsky.social analysis referenced by @johnharris1969.bsky.social. Rising disability benefit claims are being driven by an intersection of higher rates of disability & financial insecurity among disabled people - cuts will exacerbate both www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

The government has introduced legislation today to implement cuts to disability & health benefits There have been no substantial concessions on how the proposals were originally presented in the Green Paper Here is what we know about the impact these cuts will have... 🧵

Really positive to see this proposal in Scotland for a minimum income guarantee, along the lines of @neweconomics.bsky.social's Living Income, to give everyone a solid financial foundation Great work by Russell Gunson & the working group he led to produce the report www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

With another government focusing on 'incentives' in the benefits system to try to get more disabled people into work, @neweconomics.bsky.social is hosting this event on Thursday to discuss a much greater barrier - the availability of suitable & supportive work www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/its-not-me...