MAIL ON SUNDAY COMMENT: Old Labour wouldn't waste welfare on ADHD - a crackdown is crucial

Published: 21:27 BST, 3 October 2026 | Updated: 00:13 BST, 4 October 2026

Britain’s Victorian industrial revolution was often a brutal business in which men, women and children suffered conditions most of us today cannot even imagine.

To begin with, the new industrialists were seldom worried about the health or safety of their workforce.

The fate of miners was often especially terrible – lungs turned to stone by dust, limbs broken in roof falls, lives shortened by miserable conditions and poor diets.

For many others, sickness was a thing they dreaded above all. They feared it because it would make them unable to work or earn – and so condemn them to the humiliating miseries of the workhouse, a grim institution which lasted almost into modern times.

Sensible reformers realised this could not continue in a great and rich democracy and, bit by bit, they put an end to it.

One of the proudest achievements of the old Labour movement was a system of protection for those who were injured or fell ill.

In 1945, when Labour came to power with a large majority for the first time, this was what its leaders had in mind when they developed the new welfare state.

They did so knowing that it would be Labour voters who would be paying the bill, through their taxes, and it would therefore be very wrong to allow misuse of the system.

Andy Burnham should tackle the extensive diagnoses which can now win applicants state benefit payments

Socialists of that era would have scorned the idea that anyone might take advantage of these hard-won benefits as some people do today.

Of course, we have learned over the past few decades to recognise that there are forms of suffering and illness which our forebears might too readily have dismissed.

We are in general kinder and more generous to those who are distressed in ways which show no visible scars. Quite right too.

But now there are worrying signs that this may have gone too far, especially with the diagnosis of complaints such as attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).

The methods used to diagnose that problem are, at the very least, questionable, owing to their often subjective nature.

This is important because of the considerable payments which may be awarded to those found to be suffering.

Recent TV programmes, on the BBC and Channel 4, have cast doubt on the reliability of some diagnoses. These programmes have been strongly challenged by supporters of the diagnosis of ADHD, but it would be fair to say that a debate still rages.

So it makes sense for the Tory Party to require more stringent processes before allowing such a generous expenditure of the public’s money.

An astonishing 43 per cent of claims for personal independence payments (PIP) now come from health conditions such as anxiety, ADHD or routine back pain.

Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch, as we report, hopes when in Government to stop handouts for mild health conditions. Instead, she wishes to help people get into work.

There will be tougher assessments. Those affected will get support for their conditions, instead.

This will be backed by £1billion in new funding for therapies and occupational health to help people back into employment.

It is hard to see why these reasonable plans should not gain widespread support.