Tens of thousands of students are going straight from university to long-term sickness, after a steep rise in recent years driven by mental health problems.
Liz Kendall, the work and pensions secretary, says that “spiralling inactivity is the greatest employment challenge for a generation” and that reversing it is central to Labour plans to boost economic growth.
There are now a record 2.8 million people off work due to long-term sickness, up 700,000 since Covid-19, with the cost of sickness benefits due to reach £64 billion by the end of the parliament, up £30 billion on before the pandemic.
A report by the NHS Confederation and the Boston Consulting Group found that reversing even part of the impact would save taxpayers £19.5 billion a
