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Labour's addiction to welfare spending and its failure to tackle its abuse will cripple Britain. As Labour MPs seem oblivious to the spiralling cost and believe that a shake of the magic money tree will sort everything out, those of us with a brain shudder at this reckless attitude. Of course, there will always be a genuine need from those who require financial support, but the system has stopped being a safety net for those who suffer illness and life-debilitating conditions and become a lifestyle choice for a growing a number of claimants.

All MPs have a duty to curb public spending and to ensure that when it comes to sickness benefits those who really need it are the ones who get it. Spending curbs are vital to ensure that the ballooning sickness benefits bill is got under control otherwise we will burden future taxpaying generations with extreme sums of debt.

But it must also be tackled for the sake of fairness as it is increasingly clear that there are those who do not work and claim benefits when they could actually be putting in a shift and earning. This is neither right nor fair on the rest of us. Research reveals that voters in pretty much every constituency in the country say that the welfare system is open to abuse - this includes more than a third of those who are on sickness benefits themselves.

YouGov polling revealed that in all but five of 634 constituencies in the UK, voters said that the welfare system is too easy to access and does not do enough to prevent abuse. The group behind the research, The Tony Blair Institute, has called for an "emergency handbrake" to try and stem the increase in benefits pay-outs.

Sadly, this plea with fall on deaf ears as our government has zero backbone when it comes to welfare reform. The numbers involved are astronomical given the size of our country - almost 1,000 people sign on to benefits daily - with the number of claimants who are of working age increasing in the last five years from 2.8million to 4.5million.

Over half of the total growth in these claims are for behavioural or mental health conditions with a particular increase in claimants aged between 18 to 24.

The Tony Blair Institute is also calling for an immediate change in the law so that in the future those with medical conditions such ADHD, anxiety and depression are automatically classed as fit to work unless they can show significant medical evidence.

This move would reduce spending levels on sickness benefits from £52billion a year to a pre-pandemic level of £36billion. Some of these savings could be diverted into frontline mental health services to assist claimants back into work or to help those who are still genuinely suffering from the impact of the pandemic or some other issue.

But the default setting has become not to question or challenge sickness benefit claimants, but instead to give the green light for access to benefits. Britain can simply not afford this largesse anymore and the situation only looks set to get worse with more people claiming daily.

The Conservatives and Reform UK have set out their plans to cut spending and to tighten up on benefits abuse and this is to be welcomed though it must be remembered that turkeys do not vote for Christmas so it is unlikely that anyone receiving a sickness benefit when they probably should not would vote for these parties.

Which leaves it to the government to act fast and get a grip of the situation. The Prime Minister tried last year with the government's welfare bill which proposed to make changes to Personal Independence Payment (PIP) for those with a long-term mental health condition and Universal Credit (UC) - a monthly benefit for those on low incomes.

Proposals included tightening the assessment for the daily living element of PIP and reducing the top-up payments for those on UC who also have a limited capacity to work due to a disability or condition.

More than 100 Labour MPs threatened to rebel over these proposals and even after significantly watering down the reforms - or U-turns, to you and me - which would see less money being saved, 49 Labour rebels still voted against the Prime Minister. The UK's spending on sickness benefits is unstainable and is made worse by Labour's weak will on welfare reform.

Failure to tackle this is a serious dereliction of duty when it comes to protecting our nation's finances. Urgent action is needed now before Britain once again becomes the "sick man of Europe" - in more ways than one.