Former Spurs and England Darren ‘Sicknote’ Anderton played his last professional game for Bournemouth in December 2008. December 2008! My mental image of him is frozen in about 1994, so I find it impossible to believe he was so consistently injured and still played until the age of 36.
Anyway, that was what I was thinking about when the Prime Minister held a press conference to talk about ending ‘sick note culture’.
Now, first things first, most of the reforms to benefits the PM talked about are things he planned for the next Parliament. Respectfully, Rishi, the polls are not in your favour for that.
Underpinning the whole thing, however, was a suggestion that too many people are being deemed unfit for work, especially post-pandemic.
Economic inactivity is definitely a problem for the UK economy, and long-term sickness is the largest growth element of that.
But, what a strange bit of logic gymnastics you have to undertake to look at rising numbers of people with ill health and think the problem is that GPs are declaring too many people unhealthy, rather than looking at root causes.
It’s like the grade inflation argument has been transplanted to people’s health - if more pupils are getting As, the assumption is always that it’s because we’ve made it easier to get them, not because we’ve got better at teaching.
Here, it can’t possibly be that depression and anxiety (which the PM calls out as big conditions) have gone up, instead we must be medicalising normal life.
When we get announcements like this, I always wonder whether politicians consider the regional ramifications. (Hence the De Niro title).
In the North East economic inactivity is higher than average, and we rank worst across a range of health and wellbeing metrics. That means overhaul of the welfare system, changes to fit notes, new health and work professionals, that will all have a bigger impact here than elsewhere.
The North East has the highest rate of alcohol-specific death
New figures from the ONS found the North East had a rate of alcohol-specific deaths of 21.8 per 100,000. That’s the highest rate of any English region, and well above the UK average of 16.6 deaths per 100,000.
For men in the region, that rate is 29.0 per 100,000, while for women its 15.0.
It’s shot up since 2019. That 21.8 overall figure was 16.6 per 100,000 tat year.
Looking at a local authority level, Sunderland performs worst with a figure of 25.8, while Northumberland does the best with 16.9.
The average 15 year old female in Sunderland will do 9.1 years of unpaid care in her lifetime
Another cheery ONS release, this time on unpaid care.
Across the UK, at age 15, women can anticipate doing 7.6 years of unpaid care to men’s 5.3 years. For those who are 50, we’re talking more than 10% of their remaining lifetime spent doing unpaid care.
The research also found “the probability of reporting being in “not good health” was higher for people providing more hours of unpaid care.”
Regionally, as you probably predicted, we fare worse than average.
Sunderland has the worst figures, but just Newcastle and Darlington fall below an expectation of 8 years of unpaid care for females aged 15.
In fact, nowhere in the North East is below the national average.
This is, of course, once again, a reflection of the overall health of the region, and in particular of low healthy life expectancy meaning people in the North East tend to live for longer with chronic, debilitating health conditions.
The lowest private rent cost increases in the country
Finally for this week, private rental prices.
Nationally private rents have continued to increase in the past year, even as house price growth has slowed or prices have even begun to contract.
In the North East, we have the slowest rate of growth, but it is still showign growth at a rate of 6.1% since last year.
That equates to an average monthly rent of £662. Now, be pleased you aren’t trying to rent in London, where the average now stands at £2,055 per month.
Stuff for the next week or so
I’m in The QT tomorrow with a piece reflecting on Tyne & Wear Citizens’ Mayoral Assembly on Monday night. I think the campaign is coming down to a straight choice between backing a candidate who does protest, and another who does policy. You can read it (and everything else until 27 May) for free, by clicking this link
Regional GDP figures a little later this morning
Housebuilding data for the end of 2023, also today
PMQs at lunchtime
Crime stats, due tomorrow
Friday is a Private Members’ Bills day in the Commons. You can read about them here, but they are essentially a vehicle for MPs outside of the government to bring forward legislation. Thirteen Fridays a year are set aside for debate, and it usually ends up with Christopher Chope doing something which gets his name on the news
A few elections on 2nd May…
Working with me
I’m always up for a chat, especially as the dust settles in the next few weeks after the mayoral election.
You can reach me on arlen@arlenpettitt.co.uk.