Yesterday’s Budget included welcome help with energy costs and plans to improve Carer’s Allowance. For people with ME, many of whom spend much of their lives at home, rising bills are a real worry. The Budget also announced significant investment in life sciences though we found no targeted funding for ME care or research in the main report.
Before the Budget, we asked the government to fund a national framework for people with severe ME and to speed up research into diagnosis and treatment. We found no specific commitment to either in the main Budget report.
The Government says it wants to tackle “the incentive for people to be labelled as too sick to work”. People with ME are not labelled as sick. They are sick, with a serious and often disabling illness.
Helping people back into work means investing in their health. Those who remain too unwell to work deserve proper care and financial security too.
We will keep making the case for biomedical ME research within the Government’s wider life sciences investment. At an upcoming meeting with the Office for Life Sciences, we will press for ME research to be a priority.
The Government will respond to the Milburn and Timms reviews before the end of this year, with a welfare reform White Paper expected in early 2027. We will continue seeking engagement with the Timms Review so that the needs of people with ME, especially those too unwell to work, shape future reforms.
We will also make the case for specialist ME care and research ahead of the 2027 Spending Review. Our community has waited too long for this investment. We will keep pushing for it.
