Letter to Keir Starmer from the Safe Sick Pay campaign alongside 17 charity CEOs, directors and workers representatives of groups affected by inadequate statutory sick pay.

 

October 2024

 

Making Statutory Sick Pay safe: increasing the rate

 

Dear Prime Minister

 

We are writing as a group of experts, civil society leaders and employers to raise the issue of the UK’s low rate of Statutory Sick Pay and ask that proposals to increase it are laid out in the newly published Employment Bill.

 

Currently, Statutory Sick Pay (SSP) is paid at a low weekly rate of £116.75. This low rate leaves many of the 7 million workers who only receive SSP unable to afford even the most basic necessities like energy, housing or food bills when they are ill. Labour’s plan to Make Work Pay contains many welcome reforms that start to address financial security for a number of workers, including paying SSP from day one, and extending it to lower earners.

 

However, under these reforms a full-time worker can still only expect to receive £3 an hour if they are off sick and reliant on SSP. As a result, hundreds of thousands of working people who are each year diagnosed with infectious diseases, cancer, mental health problems, or serious injuries will still find themselves without adequate financial support to pay essential bills like food, rent and heating.

 

There is a wide-ranging body of evidence, medical, academic and from leading UK think tanks and charities, that suggests the current SSP system harms workers and is self-defeating for employers and the government alike. To take a few examples:

 

International and UK evidence associates low and no sick pay coverage with the spread of contagious diseases like flu, norovirus and Covid-19. One ONS study, published in the Lancet, demonstrated that limited support in the UK had a significant negative effect on care workers and the vulnerable people they cared for during the pandemic. The study found that care homes that provided staff sick pay had significantly fewer cases of infection among both residents and staff compared with those that did not.” 

 

Cancer affects over 900,000 people of working age in the UK, analysis by the Centre for Progressive Change with a number of cancer charities has found that inadequate sick pay is a serious problem for some working people during treatment. Some individuals were forced to deplete their life savings, fall into debt and behind on mortgage and rent, or even became homeless as a result of the lack of support to manage the financial impacts of their diagnosis. Very often, these workers receive no help from either SSP or timely support from in-work benefits during treatment and recovery, posing a risk to their health and long-term financial stability.

 

Equally, a survey by Mind found that for some people, their sick pay had a negative impact on their mental health and wellbeing and slowed down their recovery. Two in three respondents said that the drop in income from receiving SSP caused them financial problems, which for some meant going into debt or affecting their ability to pay their bills or buy their food. Without time and space to look after their mental health to recover, people are more likely to drop out of work entirely.

 

The economic consequences of this are significant, as are the benefits of reforming the system. Our SSP system is the least generous in the OECD and is compounding the UK’s twin problems of presenteeism and worsening health amongst working age people. This situation risks holding back the government's laudable mission to grow the economy and bolster our NHS.

 

The Work Foundation in a study of 10,804 workers' employment journeys found that job security and conditions can be a factor in whether someone will stay in employment while managing a long-term health condition. In July, the IPPR’s cross-party Commission on Health and Prosperity, identified there is a £25 billion extra ‘hidden cost’ to businesses from lower productivity among people working through sickness.

 

A recent report by WPI Economics showed that sick pay reforms could result in a net positive £4.1bn financial benefit to business, the Treasury and the wider economy. The direct costs of increasing sick pay were outweighed by benefits including increased productivity, fewer periods of prolonged absence and better public health outcomes, because people are not spreading illness by coming into work sick.

 

A higher weekly amount of sick pay is needed if we are to truly address some of these problems. By improving financial security for workers, we can reap the benefits for employers and the Treasury too. We are therefore asking you to ensure that an increase in the rate is included in the Employment Bill.

 

We would welcome the opportunity to meet with you as a group with the Safe Sick Pay campaign to discuss how by increasing the rate of sick pay, we can deliver on the government’s vision for economic growth and an economy that provides decent jobs for every worker. 

 

Yours sincerely

 

Signed (listed A-Z)

 

Amanda Walters, Director, Centre for Progressive Change

Clara Collingwood, Founder, Covid Bereaved Families for Justice

Dr Sarah Hughes, Chief Executive Officer, MIND

Colin Dyer, CEO, Leukaemia Care

Emma Kinlock, Founder, Salivary Gland Cancer UK

Gemma Peters, CEO, Macmillan Cancer Support

Henny Braun MBE, CEO, Anthony Nolan

Jacob Lant, Chief Executive, National Voices

Dame Laura Lee, CEO, Maggie’s

Matt Padley, Professor and Co-Director, Centre for Research in Social Policy

Mubin Haq, Chief Executive, Financial Fairness Trust

Nat Whalley, CEO & Co-Founder, Organise

Paul Roderick, Professor of Public Health, University of Southampton

Rachel Kirby-Rider, CEO, Young Lives vs Cancer

Rachel Kelso, founder, Homecare Workers' Group

Sasha Daly, Interim CEO, Cancer 52

Sofia Torres, Founding Member, Cleaners United

Tom MacInnes, Interim Director of Policy, Citizens Advice

 

ENDS

 

This letter was released as part of an exclusive in the Guardian organised by the Safe Sick Pay campaign, with 17 fellow charity CEOs, founders and directors.