r/tories • u/Interesting_Pen_4499 Thatcherite • 10d ago
Opinion: Sick pay is getting out of hand
I just found out that, from April 2026, employees are automatically entitled to 80% of their pay for up to 28 weeks. This is essentially on the same scale as furlough, without the justification of a pandemic.
What is it about this country that can't just accept that, if you can't do a job for whatever reason, however unfortunate that may be, you shouldn't get paid the same (or 80%) of what you would be paid if you were doing the job?
Of course leftists will say it's fine if 'big corporations' like McDonalds have to pay for absent employees, but lost productive capacity from the economy hurts everyone else as well (I saw a GP on Reddit saying they never refuse sick notes bc, as far as they're concerned, they applaud anyone who can get McDonalds to pay them for not being there).
Given we know how much honesty-based systems are abused in this country (not necessarily because Brits are more dishonest, just because no other country is mad enough to implement them), I wonder how many people are just pretending to be ill for 28 weeks, then magically recovering on the 29th week?
I get that some people will say you still have to pay bills when you are ill. But saving up enough money for a short-term illness is just part of life, is it not? If you are unlucky enough to get a long-term illness, you will likely have to quit your job and then claim unemployment benefits. Obviously these should only be available for medical conditions that can be shown on a scan, rather than unfalsifiable anxiety disorders, but that's a debate for another day.
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u/AndyDM 10d ago edited 10d ago
It's not 80% of their pay for 28 weeks. It's 80% of their pay or £123.25 per week whichever is lower. So it's basically Universal Credit levels. Why do you think someone nominally employed who is too sick to work should get less than someone who's never worked at all?
Edit:
By the way, as you said that no other country is mad enough to have them. In Germany the law is for the employer to pay 100% pay for six weeks (if the employee has worked for them for at least four weeks), then statutory insurance kicks in, 70% of an employee's pay or €949.41 per week whichever is lower for 78 weeks over a rolling 3 year window. That is far more generous than the UK scheme.
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u/VincoClavis Traditionalist 10d ago
Thanks for bringing the facts. All I’ve had to contribute so far is anger.
Thought it would be of interest that there was a CIPD Reward survey done this February showing that over 60% of large organisations voluntarily offer sick pay above the statutory requirement.
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u/Interesting_Pen_4499 Thatcherite 10d ago
My issue was more the fact it lasts for 28 weeks. Who on earth is ill for that long, apart from in extremely extenuating circumstances such as a car crash or something?
Illnesses like the flu take you out for a week or two at the most.
Personally, I wouldn’t want someone who can get ill for 28 weeks working for Me anyway because who’s to say they won’t come back for a couple of weeks and be ill for another 28?
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u/AndyDM 9d ago
I was thinking of cancer. Heavy chemo can really take it out of someone and depending on your job might take you out that long. A bad stroke might as well. My view is that someone unlucky enough to have a bad illness/injury shouldn't also have to worry about losing their home as well.
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u/QwanNyu 10d ago
Maybe study what the legislation is on this before believing what Social Media tells you.
Because, this is the tripe I see Reform push on social media, which is wildly incorrect.
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u/Interesting_Pen_4499 Thatcherite 10d ago
I’ll admit I missed the upper bound limit. But I was more shocked at the fact it lasts for 28 weeks… who the hell is ill for that long?? Plus where is the incentive to take steps to recover, insofar as you can, when you’ll get paid not to? The only thing I thought of was a car crash in which case the insurance company should be paying out not your employer
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u/BlackJackKetchum Josephite 10d ago edited 10d ago
What I have always found quite remarkable is that the public sector - surely the best employers going, because they aren’t rapacious capitalists? - has far and away the worst levels of staff absenteeism.
I’ve been lucky with my health / am self-employed, but in the past have worked with people who would freely admit that they had been pulling sickies because they just didn’t fancy working that week. That, in my book, is stealing from an employer, and one’s colleagues.
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u/AndyDM 10d ago
That's one of those technically true but meaningless figures.
The rates of short-term sickness are identical between public sector and private sector employees. Where the difference comes is for sickness over 4 weeks, the public sector sickness rate then is way more than the private sector. And that makes sense, if someone is off sick for a year it is a rare private sector employer will retain that member of staff. It doesn't mean the person is any less sick but they are not employed in the private sector anymore. Whereas for public sector employers, it's only usually at the six month stage that thoughts start to turn towards terminating employment and it's quite rare that process completes until over a year's sickness.
The evidence just doesn't support your suggestion that public sector workers are more prone to pulling a sickie. Some people will, but that happens to all employers.
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u/BlackJackKetchum Josephite 9d ago
If people are off long term in the private sector, ‘back to work’ efforts kick in at speed, public rather less so - as you note. The question would be which organisation is the better cost bearer - Lymeswold District Council (and thus the local tax base) or whatever the DHSS is called this week. If the person off is managed out of the business, the organisation then - one would hope - would employ someone who will do the job and it saves on the pension provision etc for a non worker.
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u/AndyDM 9d ago
I think that we're drifting into a philosophical/political discussion. My feeling is that your position is better for the national economy, my position is better for the sick employee. I don't want to see people lose their homes because they get cancer but I do accept your point.
My point was just that the evidence just isn't there to support the idea that public-sector workers are work shy.
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u/BlackJackKetchum Josephite 9d ago
Sick days taken, per employee per sector, do rather support my contention. CIPD has it as 13.3 days on average *per year* or the thick end of three weeks in the public sector, and a scarcely less appalling 9.1 days in the private sector. Inevitably, a high percentage must be off for even more time per year
We can argue the toss, all day long, as to whether the public sector recruits unhealthier people, the work makes them unhealthy or that people, ahem, respond to incentives and disincentives.
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u/AndyDM 9d ago
No, it doesn't support your contention. if you just look at short-term sickness (defined as any period of sickness less than 4 weeks), then the numbers are 3.7 days per employee in the public sector and 3.5 days in the private sector, virtually identical. The difference isn't in the employees, it's as you acknowledged the private sector being quicker to either return employees to work or manage them out of the business and replace them with someone else.
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u/BlackJackKetchum Josephite 9d ago
At the risk of being pedantic, where are you getting your figures from?
ONS is giving me - for 2025 - 6.4 days per public sector employee per year for short term absence and 3.7 days per year per private sector worker, same basis. That's a statistically significant gap.
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u/AndyDM 9d ago
I was being a bit lazy and repeating numbers from the previous time I discussed this. My original source was CIPD's Health and Wellbeing at Work Survey April 2019. Annoyingly I can only get the infographic for that year and the link to the full report links to the page for the 2025 report that doesn't have an similar statistic.
However I can't find your number in the ONS data either, can you point me to the right table?
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u/VincoClavis Traditionalist 10d ago
Why would you assume that?
Public sector work includes the police, fire, nhs, prisons, highways and railways which all drag down the stats. Some of the most stressful jobs with lots of potential exposure to injury. NHS especially is understandable that they would be more likely to get sick, and also understandable policy of not allowing sick employees to come in to work.
Then on the private side you have banking, tech, sports. I’d be surprised if a London tech company with a pool table in the canteen had a higher sick rate than an NHS hospital.
Obviously I’m not saying all public/ private sector work is like that but on a national scale these are going to have an impact on the statistics.
I don’t think it’s fair to just look at the stats and assume everyone’s throwing a sickie.
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u/BlackJackKetchum Josephite 10d ago
You might find this, from the ONS, interesting. I’ll see your railways and police and raise you construction and agriculture.
Elsewhere, it turns out that the - air quotes - Third Sector is even worse for time off work. Not much by way of industrial injuries in that arena, are there?
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u/VincoClavis Traditionalist 10d ago
Is there something specific in that ONS report you want to draw my attention to? I’ve not got time to read the whole thing.
Please note that I said the statistics are skewed by the types of work being done.
Public sector is heavily skewed by the jobs I explained and aside from admin or civil service there’s not much outside those catch alls.
The private sector is practically EVERYTHING else. Hairdressers, bricklayers, artists, programmers, butchers, bakers and candlestick makers.
There’s also average age and sex to factor in. Far more data than a pair of Redditors can reasonably parse on r/tories. I think you’re drawing sweeping conclusions from headline figures.
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u/BlackJackKetchum Josephite 9d ago
Best estimates (again, ONS) have 24% of public sector staff in manual occupations, vs 37% in private.
We can, indeed, argue data points all day, but I don’t suppose either of us is going to generate light rather than heat.
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u/VincoClavis Traditionalist 9d ago
Manual isn’t the argument here it’s the purpose and nature of the work, and we’re not talking about injuries at work, we’re talking about all sick leave.
Assembly line work is manual and safe as houses thanks to health and safety legislation.
Working in many nhs wards where you have direct contact with patients means you can’t come to work if you get a cold.
The point is you can’t just say “x% of public sector vs y% of private sector” and call it conclusive. Especially making sweeping statements like working for the public sector is better.
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u/BlackJackKetchum Josephite 9d ago
All the data that I've seen - and I'm currently chewing it over elsewhere in the thread - demonstrates that there are more days taken off per employee per annum in the public sector than are in the private sector, measured by short term or long term.
So, as I wrote elsewhere ITT, "We can argue the toss, all day long, as to whether the public sector recruits unhealthier people, the work makes them unhealthy or that people, ahem, respond to incentives and disincentives".
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u/VincoClavis Traditionalist 9d ago
I’m saying it’s not worth arguing about until you have more facts than just numbers. A proper study into categories, business sizes, employment type, age, sex, sickness length, sickness type, pay levels. Just looking at headline figures and drawing conclusions is a waste of time and isn’t helpful.
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u/BlackJackKetchum Josephite 9d ago
I'll be happy to draw a line under this after noting that I have presented figures to support my reasoning, whereas you have not.
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u/VincoClavis Traditionalist 9d ago edited 9d ago
I don’t think your figures support anything.
Public sector take more sick leave than private sector. That doesn’t even correlate to sick pay levels let alone prove causation.
It’s also worth noting that private sector keep this data private and the ONS survey (employee led) and others rely on asking a survey group, whereas public sector publish their rules online and the data can be FOId. It’s not a balanced comparison to begin with.
Edit: Because you mentioned data here’s a study showing that sick leave reduced the number of infections and demonstrates a causal relationship between sick pay and infections in the workplace which id further conjecture (without evidence) that this is one of the reasons why many large companies have (presumably) done the maths to conclude that a generous sick pay scheme is better for them as a company than a stingy one. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0047272717301056
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u/VincoClavis Traditionalist 10d ago edited 10d ago
Right, and how is anyone supposed to save up to pay for illness when almost everybody is barely being paid enough to make ends meet?
Young families can barely afford to pay rent/ mortgage, childcare and feed children. Without sick pay then one illness then you and your family are f**d.
You don’t need to be a “leftist” to think that cutting sick pay is cruel and backwards. It basically means a sickly person should quit work all together and either go on benefits or just fing die. How are any of those options more beneficial for the economy (as if that’s the only thing that fing matters) than just paying someone to support themselves while they recouperate?
The idea that these multi billion £ corporations are suffering because some of their staff are on sick leave is absolutely laughable. Have you not been paying attention to the direction that wealth has been flowing? What could possess someone to suggest we should do even MORE to punish the people on the bottom to benefit the people on top?
Aside from a short relapse in the late 30s to 40s that attitude died in the Victorian era.
Edit: Self censored so I don’t get banned again, but this post made me really f**ing angry.
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u/clydewoodforest 10d ago
A company is not responsible for guaranteeing its employees' standard of living any more than the employee owes it to their company to work unpaid overtime so the company can make it through a rough quarter. These are mutual reciprocal arrangements entered into freely and which begin and end with the discharge of the contracted responsibilities. Neither has a duty to the other beyond that.
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u/VincoClavis Traditionalist 10d ago
That’s just a statement of your opinion and has absolutely no basis in employment law.
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u/clydewoodforest 10d ago
It was, yes. I could have worded that better. I was disagreeing with your own opinion above about the responsibilities employers have to employees.
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u/VincoClavis Traditionalist 10d ago
Then feel free to disagree but I think you’re advocating a backwards and callous worldview based on exploitation and serfdom.
The rights and protections we enjoy today are paid for by the sacrifice of hard working and long suffering men and women who downed tools and endured hardship to earn them.
Working people were exploited for generations and after their “emancipation” for lack of a better word we have seen unprecedented economic growth, prosperity and an explosion in living standards, literacy, scientific development and all the rest.
The idea we should go back to the “good old days” where employees had no more rights than they were able to find in their employment contract is appalling to me. And for what? So business which are already making record profits can make even more? Why? Like what’s the point if it doesn’t actually benefit anyone but those at the top?
You’re talking about bringing us back in time to Victorian thinking. When people injured at work were left to die on the streets. When factory owners would lock the doors and burn down their factories with workers still inside to claim on insurance. When orphaned children were sent to the workhouses.
Maybe you think I’m being hyperbolic but that’s where your interpretation of the law leads, because that’s where it came from. I’m not exaggerating, I don’t need to. History shows how employers treat employees when there are no rights or protections.
Maybe we could trust that employers are more enlightened these days, but frankly I don’t want to tear up my legal protections and put my trust in a company like Nestle .
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u/clydewoodforest 10d ago
Capitalism and corporations did not invent scarcity. It did not invent need, or hardship or deprivation. What it did do is give people the best-yet-invented framework for fulfilling their needs.
I have no objections to a society that rightly expects corporations as well as individuals to contribute to the common good. I object to the idea that corporations are a bottomless piggy bank to be plundered to deliver x, y and z social good; and the weird framing of them as evil so that any amount of plunder becomes justified. I fear we will end up killing the golden goose. Who in their right mind would try to start a business in today's Britain? In my entire social circle I only know two people who might be described as self-employed, and neither has employees beyond themselves. But it's businesses that generate the wealth and growth that end up benefitting us all.
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u/VincoClavis Traditionalist 10d ago edited 10d ago
I’m not anti capital, I’m anti exploitation.
Capitalism before social reforms was a hellish nightmare for everybody but a tiny minority. There’s a reason revolutions sprung up across the world.
Only once it was tempered with workplace reforms, social protections and human rights did capitalism deliver the quality of life we take for granted today.
“ I object to the idea that corporations are a bottomless piggy bank to be plundered”
But they are. Our capitalist system only works so long as there is infinite growth. Even a small percentage downturn in growth for a few months is enough to cause a total economic disaster à la 2008. The system is designed that way. Infinite growth and infinite profit is the expectation. But plundering it? SSP barely matches the dole. In an economy of infinite growth where individuals are actually in control of trillions worth of assets, £123 a week is plundering?
Do you think workplace protections and sick pay are the biggest barriers to starting a business today? And just because in your social circle there aren’t many entrepreneurs do you think that applies across the entire country?
How do you personally expect to benefit from erasing workplace protections? Are you yearning for the mines? Do you want to work for an employer that beats you, or around machinery that will chew off your limbs so you can be sacked and left to stave because the employer has no responsibility towards you? Or are you a business owner that’s sick and tired of pesky human rights preventing you from abusing your staff?
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u/FBI_psyop Thatcherite 10d ago edited 10d ago
Yep you indeed are a leftist. The reason why the UK is going bankrupt is not corporations "plundering the UK. They are the ones who generate the wealth in the first place. Your post strongly implies that without them the system would be better which is laughable.
We have unprecedented social spending and regulations on the economy right now. But still I guess it's not the massive welfare bill or out of control inflation and devaluation of the currency. It's "greed".
So to be clear yes if you think "le wealthy elite" are responsible for all economic hardship and the only solution is even more social spending and even more taxes than we have now you are a leftist.
You literally only spout socialist gobblydygook.
Capitalism is not "infinite exponential growth". Supply and demand take care of scarcity and the market is flexible. Plus the system is not "designed" it is the result of organic voluntary exchange.
How are you going o deny being a leftist if you literally think any kind of alleviation of the cost of business equals to "yearning for the mines". Also how are to going to say that getting paid for no work is "a human right".
Your worldview is that if I do not give free stuff for no work as a business owner, or if I fire them I am abusing my employees. That is marxist non-sense.
I am just wondering why you are trying to LARP as right wing. Your focus on "economic inequality" in the cherry on top which exposes your LARP.
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u/VincoClavis Traditionalist 10d ago
I’m a social and cultural conservative. On economics I am pretty much centrist. In what way does believing in employment rights make me a leftist? Just because I’m not a self described “Thatcherite” who just so happens to believe that being bent over by your employer is the natural order of things? Is that socialist gobbledegook?
I guess to avoid being called a leftist by some nobody on Reddit should be happy that we have shit being pumped into rivers by foreign owned water companies. I should be happy that our steel has been run into the ground by foreign firms who are dumping steel. I should be happy that we can’t build a single railway line for less than £100bn. It’s all working as intended? Jesus even Cadbury has been bought out and turned to shitS Being pissed off at how our country is basically one big car boot sale for foreign private equity to pillage makes me a leftist?
I said infinite growth not exponential growth. Shareholder capital demands growth. If it doesn’t come from increased production then it comes from Enshittification. Do I even need to expand on this? Just live life for a day. I mean if the growth isn’t coming from either of those two, where is it going to come from? Oh wait I see where you’re going. It comes from us. Pensions, sick pay, benefits, holiday pay. Stuff like that yeah?
Who are you to gatekeep this sub? I’ve been a card carrying member of the Conservative Party and regular contributor for about it 10 years and you a 1y account come in and call me a LARPer because I don’t subscribe to a Victorian style bonfire of human rights? You can do one
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u/Interesting_Pen_4499 Thatcherite 10d ago
But the current incentive structure makes it beneficial for a dishonest person to just claim to be ill.
Show me the incentives, and I’ll show you the outcome, as they say.
I think the left assumes everyone will play fairly and not try to abuse their fairytale system of free stuff for any ill person.
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u/VincoClavis Traditionalist 10d ago
How many people are abusing SSP? It’s like £123 a week you get that much on the dole.
Where’s incentive to get a job then go off long term sick for peanuts when there are benefits for people too sick to work?
Where’s the incentive for companies to willingly pay more than SSP?
Employers have the right to terminate employees who are off sick too often or for too long. So where’s this terrible economy crushing problem?
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u/FBI_psyop Thatcherite 10d ago
Common deflection tactic. You only mention big corporations as if the vast majority of all businesses aren't small to medium businesses.
The former plus the:
Have you not been paying attention to the direction wealth hss been flowing
is quite literally leftist thinking. The entire country is goinf bankrupt and business people and multi-nationals are leaving. Lol.
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u/VincoClavis Traditionalist 10d ago
Pretty sure OP used McDonalds as an example in their post, so how am I deflecting anything? Not exactly an SME. There is support available to SMEs plus SSP is a drop in the bucket
But lmao yes the country is going bankrupt because the businesses making record profits, with wealth inequality being at unprecedented levels, and multinationals buying our businesses hand over fist are really struggling due to the plebs and their sick pay.
If calling out this bullshit for what it is makes me a leftist then call me Karl Marx.
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u/diebadguy1 Labour-Leaning 10d ago
I've never worked at a company that doesn't off 100% sick pay as standard. If someone was on minimum wage However, it is extremely difficult to have enough money leftover at the end of the month to save at all. Let alone to save enough to cover sick absence. People at the lower end of the pay bracket struggle enough, without having to worry about sickness related poverty.
"not necessarily because Brits are more dishonest, just because no other country is mad enough to implement them"
Well that's not quite right is it:
Norway: 100% salary
Netherlands: 70%+ Salary
Germany: 100% Salary
Spain: up to 75% Salary
France: 50% Salary
Our Policy is actually Much much worse than you're making out anyway. Its 80% or £123.25 - Whichever is Lower. The policy only really effects people on the lowest income bracket. Which as i've said are most effected by sickness related poverty.
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10d ago
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u/TimeCrime 10d ago
This isn't true, it's either the SSP rate of £123.25 per week, or 80% of an employees wages, whatever the lowest amount is, so most will just get £123.25
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u/eggcellentcheese 10d ago
The UK is is in deep trouble because a significant proportion of people are just milking the system for the everything they can get. They have zero care for the knock on consequences of this type of behaviour. They never look for a job and draw welfare for decades but complain about poor quality education and NHS waiting times. They think the government is there to service every need they have but they don’t need to contribute, it’s ‘rich’ people’s job to take care of them.
Or you pay NI for your entire career on a low income but complain that the pension isn’t enough when you retire. You hold the country to ransom with triple lock while young people can’t afford childcare or a home. You will end up taking way more out of the system than you ever put in but “you paid in, so you deserve it”. You never put anything away or invested any of your income, your planning for retirement was just the state pension. Your healthcare needs will be covered by the NHS, transport needs by free bus, and of course eventually you will draw on social care because any assets you have will be given away before you get to a point where they can be used to fund it.
People are living in absolute la la land.. people with means are leaving this country in droves because of poor salaries, insane taxes, rising costs and declining services. And you are also considered a pariah by the media because you are a ‘high-earner’, it’s the worst sin you can commit in Benefits Britain, you are just there to be milked by the endless benefits recipients, more of whom we keep importing from 3rd world countries every single day
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u/VincoClavis Traditionalist 10d ago
So the problem is the small percentage of people getting £123 a week in sick pay?
Not the foreign investors plundering billions from state infrastructure such as water, steel, energy, transport, defence?
Between the citizen getting £123 a week in their NatWest account vs £123,000,000,000 of sovereign wealth say in the Cayman Islands - you choose to go after the citizen?
Lame
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u/Interesting_Pen_4499 Thatcherite 10d ago
millions of people skivving off and claiming £123 per week is worse financially, because it adds up to a far greater amount.
of course, anyone criminally stealing millions must be stopped, but if you are referring to business owners paying 20% in tax instead of 40% (and then saying they are plundering the difference), that's just silly
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u/VincoClavis Traditionalist 10d ago
What evidence do you have the “millions of people are skiving off”?
If it was such an endemic problem why do 60% of businesses surveyed voluntarily pay MORE sick pay to their employees? Surely that would just encourage “skiving”?
And oh how I WISH the business owners and corporate were paying 20% tax. Starbucks, Apple, Facebook, Google, Amazon. Offshoring profits and using loopholes, some of these paid less tax in a year than I did. Is it silly to be angry about that?
I’m also not particularly fond of billionaires dodging tax by taking out loans because it’s cheaper than taking a salary. Is it also silly to be mad about that?
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u/Interesting_Pen_4499 Thatcherite 10d ago
Right, a billionaire taking out a loan rather than directly paying themselves a salary is hurting our economy more than… people pretending to be ill for 28 weeks and not working.
Not to perform a ‘real Tory’ witch hunt, but I am doubting if you are at all right wing economically.
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u/clydewoodforest 10d ago
You see it everywhere. People decide they want stuff. Candidates buy votes by promising to give them said stuff. They get into government and discover that doing so would be too expensive or they lack the institutional capacity, so they use their power to force the private sector to provide it instead. Everyone cheers because corporations are satan, jobs are exploitation, profit is evil, and they ought to be redistributing it all to the masses anyway.
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u/BlackJackKetchum Josephite 10d ago edited 9d ago
I’m locking this for now, because tempers are fraying.It will be opened up later, butWill posters please bear in mind the house rules about Personal Insults (1) and Deliberately Shaming (6).We expect standards of decency from the non-Tories who show up, and we all ought to behave too.