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A spike in the number of claimants for health-related benefits in the UK was caused by flaws in the design of the social care system, rather than by worsening health outcomes or long waits for treatment, a panel of peers has said.

The House of Lords Economic Affairs Committee has called on ministers to act urgently to prevent the annual cost of disability and disability benefits from rising from their current level of £64.7 billion to £100.7 billion by 2029-30.

My findings challenge the government’s assumptions ahead of a promised review of the social care system, while highlighting the pressure that the rising benefits bill places on other spending on public services.

In a letter to Work and Pensions Secretary Liz Kendall, published on Monday, the committee said there was “no convincing evidence” that the rise in benefits bill was due to poor health or NHS waiting lists.

“Unemployed people have incentives to claim health-related benefits; once they receive them, they have neither the incentive nor the support to find and accept a job,” she warned.

Lord George Bridges, chairman of the committee, said: “This is a huge and growing social problem [government’s] “The timetable does not show the level of urgency required.”

He added that while the ministers promised to publish plans Social welfare reform In the spring, it will be too late for any savings to be included in this year’s spending review.

The committee’s diagnosis of the problem differs from the narrative Kendall gave when she outlined reforms to support jobseekers in the autumn, which she described as a plan to “make Britain work”.

She described the post-pandemic health crisis that left Britain the only G7 country to see its workforce shrink, with 2.8 million people deemed economically inactive for health-related reasons.

Peers said issues with official labor market data have clouded the picture, and it is not clear whether the overall labor market inactivity rate is higher now than it was in 2019.

However, there has been an increase of 1.2 million working-age people receiving health-related benefits since early 2020, which now totals 3.7 million.

The committee said this reflects strong incentives for people to claim disability support rather than unemployment benefits because of the “stark financial disparity” in the help on offer.

The commission said people who were assessed as not being eligible to work or look for work could double their income and escape strict conditions by moving from jobseeker’s allowance to disability benefit. She added that they then risk significant income losses if they return to a job in which they were unsuccessful.

New claims for disability benefits have not risen enough to explain the increase in the number of beneficiaries. This is mostly due to the fact that a greater proportion of claims are approved and fewer people withdraw or leave the system after re-evaluation.

The committee said the claims assessment process needed to be more rigorous, but the government also needed to give people more support to return to work, and make sure they would not lose out by accepting a job.

Bridges said the government will need to reform unemployment and disability benefits, because of the interaction between the two, which could result in unemployment benefits standards being relaxed while sickness benefits tightening.

Some of the committee’s recommendations are similar to proposals made by former work and pensions secretary Mel Stride, which were not implemented, partly due to a legal challenge to the consultation process.

A spokesman said the government was “determined to get Britain back to work”, had already set out the first steps to boost employment and would consult on health and disability benefits reforms in the spring.

They added: “We have made clear that the current social care system needs to be reformed, so it is fairer for taxpayers and people get the support they need.”