Tories refuse to provide any details of Whately’s ‘landmark review of sickness and disability benefits’

The Conservative party is refusing to provide any details of its review of disability benefits, including who is carrying it out, and what attempts it will make to engage with disabled people.

Despite repeated requests from Disability News Service (DNS), the party has been unable to offer any information about how the review will be conducted, even though it was launched officially by its shadow work and pensions secretary, Helen Whately, last week.

The lack of information casts a question-mark over Whately’s intentions, and whether the review even exists.

Last week (pictured), she announced the launch of what she called a “landmark review of sickness and disability benefits” with a pledge that a future Tory government would set about “toughening up the welfare system”.

She said her party would not “tinker round the edges” in the review of what she called “the sickness benefit system”, and she promised that it would “go further” than the £23 billion a year of “welfare savings” the party has already identified.

In another social media post last week, Whately claimed: “I’ve launched a review of the sickness benefits system… This review will look at the whole system and set out our plan to fix it.”

But despite repeatedly announcing that she had launched the review, Whately and her party are refusing to provide any details of how it will be run, and by who.

Asked by DNS for details of who is carrying out the review, how long it will take, and how it will engage with disabled people, and for a copy of its terms of reference, the party’s press office failed to respond to emails.

One press officer, when asked on the phone for details of the review, said: “I’ll see what I can do.”

He has so far failed to provide any information.

Another press officer made a similar pledge yesterday (Wednesday).

This final request for information had produced nothing from the party by noon today.

Whately’s failure to offer any details about her review came as the UK Statistics Authority (UKSA) told Badenoch that her party should correct its untrue claim – exposed by fact-checking charity Full Fact – that “for the first time ever, the total welfare bill is now higher than total receipts from income tax”.

UKSA’s chair, Penny Young, told Badenoch in a letter yesterday that “figures from the OBR show that welfare spending has exceeded income tax receipts since at least 2011.

“Furthermore, the gap between welfare spending and income tax receipts has narrowed in recent years, with the positions forecast to reverse in 2026/27 and beyond.”

Young said the Conservative party had also failed to offer important context to its claim, which was that a substantial proportion of “welfare spending” was on pension benefits, whereas the party’s Alternative King’s Speech – which included the untrue claim about spending – “focused primarily on out-of-work and sickness-related benefits”.

Young, who was writing on behalf of the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR), added: “Overall, we are concerned that the inaccuracy of the ‘first time ever’ element of the claim, combined with the absence of this contextual explanation, could lead to misunderstanding among members of the public about welfare spending.

“Given the prominence of this claim, and the evidence that it is not accurate, we hope that you might consider how best to clarify it so that it fully supports public understanding of trends in taxation and welfare spending.”

It is the second time in two months that Young has had to write to Badenoch to correct a misleading claim about social security spending.

Meanwhile, OSR is continuing to probe another complaint, this time from DNS, about inaccurate and misleading claims by senior Conservative figures – including Whately – that “welfare spending” is “out of control” or “spiralling”.

OSR said yesterday that this complaint is “still under review”.