Four Million Self-Employed Workers Still Get No Sick Pay, Warns Liz Barclay

Sick Pay Stops at the Payroll — Leaving the Self-Employed Exposed

Liz Barclay, small business advocate and founder of http://www.Business111.com, has called on the Government to urgently address the absence of sick pay for the UK’s 4.4 million self-employed workers, following the publication of a major new report by the Fabian Society.

The report, Self-Care: Providing Income Security for the Self-Employed, highlights a stark reality: self-employed people fall ill at similar rates to employees, but most receive no sick pay at all, forcing many to work through illness or face a catastrophic loss of income.

According to the report, a full-time self-employed worker who becomes ill can lose around 81 per cent of their income, compared with employees who are protected by statutory sick pay. Nearly one in five self-employed people say they would have to continue working even if ill or injured, simply to survive financially.

Liz Barclay said: “Sick pay is a basic building block of a functioning economy, yet for millions of self-employed people it simply doesn’t exist. If you don’t work, you don’t earn and that forces people to choose between their health and paying the bills.”

She welcomed the report’s proposal for a new opt-out sickness insurance scheme, which would automatically enrol self-employed workers into a centrally administered sick pay fund, paying out at statutory sick pay rates when illness strikes.

“This isn’t about special treatment. It’s about recognising reality. People get sick. When they do, the absence of sick pay pushes costs onto the NHS, social security and the wider economy. A simple, shared sick pay system would protect individuals and benefit everyone.”

Barclay warned that the current lack of sick pay protection is already shaping behaviour across the economy:

“People work while ill, delay recovery, and burn out. Others abandon self-employment altogether because the risks are too high. That’s bad for productivity, bad for public health and bad for growth.”

She also cautioned against framing the debate as a tax issue:

“There’s frequent talk about ‘closing the tax gap’ between employees and the self-employed, but very little about the support gap. You can’t ask people to take on all the risk without offering basic protections like sick pay in return.”

Barclay urged ministers to ensure that reforms to employment rights do not widen the divide between employees and the self-employed:

“If the Government is serious about making work pay and protecting people, sick pay cannot stop at the payroll. Self-employed people are not a side issue. They are a vital and productive part of the UK economy. Policy needs to reflect that.”