Alan Milburn, Labour grandee and member of His Majesty’s Most Honourable Privy Council, has said our country’s sick note system ‘is just bloody insane’.

He was in Holland with Sir Gareth Southgate. They visited on our behalf, trying to work out why the Dutch have less than 5 per cent of their youth not in education, employment or training, whereas for us the figure is not far off triple that, at 13.6 per cent.

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‘We know that once you enter the welfare system… the stickiness kicks in,’ Milburn said, noting that people have a 50 per cent chance of still being on health and disability benefits 15 years after first receiving them. ‘Everybody talks about the fiscal disaster. Fine, but most importantly, it’s a life chances disaster because we’re ruining the life chances of these young people.’

I don’t imagine Milburn was any less forthright or sympathetic when he was health secretary. But the incapacity caseload of roughly 2.75 million he inherited when he took office in 1999 was still much the same when he resigned in 2003. Milburn is correct to say we have a problem, but like many a problem it’s easier to identify than........

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