I acknowledge the objective to reform the system to provide disabled people with the ‘rights, choices, and chances’ to work. I also welcome the government’s commitment to ending eligibility assessments for those with lifelong conditions and safeguarding income for the those with the most severe disabilities.
However, cutting £5bn from disabled people’s benefits will undermine the government’s efforts to strengthen the economy and support disabled people into work. These cuts will have a devastating impact on some of the poorest and most vulnerable individuals who already face significant barriers in accessing support and employment opportunities. Cutting their incomes will only exacerbate these challenges, leaving them without the essential help they need.
The cost-of-living crisis continues to put immense pressure on low-income households and child poverty stands at 34% in families where someone is disabled, compared to 27% in families where no one is disabled
Disabled people, particularly disabled women, have already borne the brunt of cuts to social security and public services, experiencing an 11% drop in living standards since 2010
The eligibility restrictions for PIP are especially worrying. As recent analysis by the Child Poverty Action Group shows, 870,000 children are living in families receiving PIP, with a third of them already living in poverty. PIP is also a gateway benefit for unpaid carers (the majority of whom are women) to receive Carer’s Allowance (CA). Therefore, specific eligibility restrictions placed on the daily living component will not only affect disabled people, but also impact carers’ ability to claim CA.
Fran Heathcote, the general secretary of the PCS union said: “Targeting the most vulnerable with benefit cuts to meet arbitrary fiscal rules is an immoral choice at any time, but at a time of rising poverty, long NHS waiting lists and when the cost-of-living crisis continues to bite is abhorrent.”
“Not what we expect from a Labour government”
I recognise the financial challenges the government faces, but scaling back existential support to disabled people is not the answer. In fact, it directly contradicts the government’s commitments to ensure that “those with the broadest shoulders will bear the heaviest burden”
What has been proposed by this government is not what we would expect from a Labour government, it has already caused distress to those most vulnerable.
There are feasible and fairer options for reform available to the government that would help increase revenue to pay for the services and welfare desperately needed to address the cumulative impact of austerity, the Covid-19 pandemic, and the cost-of-living crisis on our public services and the most vulnerable in society.
“Oxfam’s latest inequality report showed that the total wealth of UK billionaires increased by £35mn per day in 2024. Increasing taxes on the super-rich through a modest wealth tax – such as a 2% levy on assets over £10mn – could generate an estimated £24bn a year, to invest in our public services and infrastructure and protect the wellbeing of our communities.
Surely this would have been an approach we expected from a Labour government
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