As the Labour government’s much-touted Milburn review calls for an overhaul of the benefits system to tackle the so-called youth unemployment crisis, the Canary has uncovered how young disabled claimants are disproportionately more likely to be at risk of self-harm, suicide, or physical health deterioration if the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) forces them into work.
That’s according to the DWP’s own figures no less – as a Freedom of Information (FOI) request has now revealed.
Milburn review: punching down on disabled young people
On Thursday 28 May, the DWP released an ‘independent’ interim report exploring the “drivers” of the supposed rise in youth unemployment.
Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) non-executive director and former Blairite health secretary Alan Milburn has been leading the inquiry to kick young disabled people ‘Not in Employment, Education of Training’ – so-called NEETs – off benefits.
Predictably, the report was rife with ‘findings’ implying young people are faking the severity of their health conditions to game the welfare system.
Naturally then, Milburn’s takes look a lot like punching down on young chronically ill and disabled people. This includes the suggestion that Universal Credit’s health element and its lack of requirements to search for work are a “perverse incentive”.
Notably, the report reads that:
It is designed in ways that can drive young people into passive inactivity rather than into them actively seeking work. For a young person with a health condition who is unemployed and potentially seeking work, taking a pathway to inactivity can offer higher income, less hassle and lower risk.
And predictably, the report lays into neurodivergent people and those living with mental health conditions for this. Of course, it involves amping up the DWP’s favourite mantra that work is good for people’s mental health.
The obvious implication of all this is that young people are over-exaggerating their health conditions to claim benefits.
However, figures the DWP has released to the Canary via FOI blows a hole in Milburn’s problematic report.
This is because they show that young disabled people claiming Universal Credit’s limited capability for work-related activity (LCWRA) health element are disproportionately more likely to be under the department’s ‘Substantial Risk’ group.
Substantial risk: work a danger to claimants health
As the name suggests, these are all claimants the DWP has determined work would be actively dangerous to their – or others – physical or mental health. In other words, it’s disabled claimants who could be at risk of self-injury, suicide, harm to their health, or other people’s safety, if the department forces them to seek out employment.
Substantial Risk claimants can therefore qualify for Universal Credit LCW or LCWRA, or ESA without satisfying any of the descriptors in the Work Capability Assessment (WCA) claimants use to apply for these benefits.
And notably, the figures revealed how the DWP has applied substantial risk to 21% – around 1 in 5 – LCWRA claimants under the age of 24. This equated to 62,570 claimants.
For those between 25 and 34, it was little over half this at 11% (92,670 claimants). This trend continued: the older the age group, the lower the proportion of LCWRA claimants on substantial risk.
For 35 to 44, this was 8% (78,510) and 45 to 54 just 6% (54,600). 55 to 64-year-olds came in around 2.5% (24,610). Meanwhile, over 65s had just 0.2% (230) on substantial risk.
The point being, of course, that even the DWP’s own assessors – who notoriously under-award LCWRA – are identifying young claimants are more often a danger to themselves or others if it tries to shunt them into work. Given this, it’s hard to see how Milburn’s call for ‘reforming’ the benefit system is going to end well.
Milburn review: what’s to come?
The interim report stopped shy of making recommendations – these will come later. The DWP has said Milburn will publish these in the full report in September.
But there are already clues as to what Milburn might have lined up for this ‘overhaul’ of the welfare system.
In tandem with the right-wing propaganda rags, the Labour government has spent its time in power demonising young disabled people. Most of its attacks have targeted those with mental health or neurodivergent conditions. That is why it’s no coincidence Milburn’s interim report has implied people living with these conditions are not ‘disabled enough’ to deserve welfare support long-term.
In March 2025, then DWP boss Liz Kendall put forward proposals to entirely do-away with the health element for under 22s.
But disabled people and campaign groups have scathingly lambasted the idea. This was not least the case in response to the DWP’s own consultation on its welfare cut plans. More than 3,300 people told the department that support:
should be based on need, not age.
This two-tier system is not based on any actual health logic. Disabled people under 22 can just as legitimately not be able to work as anyone over that age.
Yet, the proposal would see the DWP deprive young disabled people of £429.80 a month. And it would be for no real reason beyond the government’s vehement desire to pitch itself as the ‘party of work’. Across a year, the stunt would cost disabled people under 22 around £5,158 in vital welfare payments.
Vile plans in the pipeline
Meanwhile, the Resolution Foundation – architect behind the Universal Credit cuts – recently called for benefit conditionality for young claimants. And the think tank appears deeply in bed with this Labour government’s agenda. That’s not least because its former director Torsten Bell is now a DWP minister. Bell stepped down from his role just shy of his election to parliament. And in 2024, another previous chair – Gavin Kelly – joined the DWP’s Labour Market Advisory Board (LMAB). The LMAB quite literally spells out its role to “tackle inactivity” in young people “driven by long-term health conditions”.
However, the figures the Canary crunched from the DWP show without question that any such plans would be nothing short of catastrophic. In fact, it would actively put young disabled people at serious health risk – and could even kill them. Of course, that’s disgracefully something the diabolical DWP is no stranger to. But Milburn’s report sure as hell wasn’t about to mention any of that.
Featured image via the Canary
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