Wednesday, March 19, 2025
Labour no longer stand up for the sick and vulnerable
Building on the failure to abolish the two-child benefit cap and forcing thousands of pensioners to choose between heating and eating with the abolition of the winter fuel allowance, yesterday the work and pensions secretary, Liz Kendall, laid out her long-awaited changes to the benefits system, announcing a set of measures that will save £5bn by cutting disability payments.
The paper says that experts have warned that the plans will reduce the incomes of more than 1 million people, leaving ministers braced for the biggest rebellion yet of the Labour government, with as many as 30 MPs expected to vote against the plans within weeks. It's just that 30 rebels will prove insufficient to stop these cuts going ahead.
Debbie Abrahams, the Labour chair of the Commons work and pensions committee, is right when she warned against “balancing the books on the backs of sick and disabled people”:
Much of Kendall’s package of measures is aimed at reducing incentives to stay out of work. The work and pensions secretary is scrapping the system of giving higher incapacity payments for those unable to work than to those who can, in a bid to make sure as many people as possible are looking for work.
There will also be a new “right to work” scheme for those on incapacity benefits so they can try to return to work without risking losing their entitlements.
People under the age of 22 wanting the health top-up to universal credit will no longer qualify under plans being consulted on, with the savings being reinvested in work and training schemes to help get them into the workplace.
But the most financially significant decision is Kendall’s plan to introduce drastically tighter limits for who can claim personal independence payments (Pips), which are intended to help people with their quality of life and are not connected to employment. The Pip savings will help the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, stick to her fiscal rules when she announces her spring statement next week.
Under the new system, people who cannot cook a simple meal for themselves but can heat food up in a microwave would not be eligible for the payments unless they have other needs to be taken into account. Needing assistance to wash their hair or their body below the waist would also be judged as insufficient to claim the payments, which are currently worth up to £185 a week.
Ministers will not lay out where exactly the £5bn savings are coming from until next week, though officials indicated most would come from reduced Pip spending. The Resolution Foundation thinktank said the plan would see between 800,000 and 1.2 million people losing support of between £4,200 and £6,300 a year by 2029-30.
Louise Murphy, a senior economist at the Resolution Foundation, said: “Around 1 million people are potentially at risk of losing support from tighter restrictions on Pip, while young people and those who fall ill in the future will lose support from a huge scaling back of incapacity benefits.
“While it includes some sensible reforms, too many of the proposals have been driven by the need for short-term savings to meet fiscal rules, rather than long-term reform. The result risks being a major income shock for millions of low-income households.”
The Institute for Fiscal Studies warned a further 600,000 people would lose £2,400 a year in universal credit payments because of plans to replace the work capability assessment with the much tighter assessment for Pips.
Sarah Hughes, the chief executive of the mental health charity Mind, said: “Mental health problems are not a choice – but it is a political choice to make it harder for people to access the support they need to live with dignity and independence. These reforms will only serve to deepen the nation’s mental health crisis.”
What is clear from this announcement is that Labour no longer stands for supporting the sick and vulnerable. Now it is all about balancing the books and to hell with the consequences.
Much of Kendall’s package of measures is aimed at reducing incentives to stay out of work. The work and pensions secretary is scrapping the system of giving higher incapacity payments for those unable to work than to those who can, in a bid to make sure as many people as possible are looking for work.
There will also be a new “right to work” scheme for those on incapacity benefits so they can try to return to work without risking losing their entitlements.
People under the age of 22 wanting the health top-up to universal credit will no longer qualify under plans being consulted on, with the savings being reinvested in work and training schemes to help get them into the workplace.
But the most financially significant decision is Kendall’s plan to introduce drastically tighter limits for who can claim personal independence payments (Pips), which are intended to help people with their quality of life and are not connected to employment. The Pip savings will help the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, stick to her fiscal rules when she announces her spring statement next week.
Under the new system, people who cannot cook a simple meal for themselves but can heat food up in a microwave would not be eligible for the payments unless they have other needs to be taken into account. Needing assistance to wash their hair or their body below the waist would also be judged as insufficient to claim the payments, which are currently worth up to £185 a week.
Ministers will not lay out where exactly the £5bn savings are coming from until next week, though officials indicated most would come from reduced Pip spending. The Resolution Foundation thinktank said the plan would see between 800,000 and 1.2 million people losing support of between £4,200 and £6,300 a year by 2029-30.
Louise Murphy, a senior economist at the Resolution Foundation, said: “Around 1 million people are potentially at risk of losing support from tighter restrictions on Pip, while young people and those who fall ill in the future will lose support from a huge scaling back of incapacity benefits.
“While it includes some sensible reforms, too many of the proposals have been driven by the need for short-term savings to meet fiscal rules, rather than long-term reform. The result risks being a major income shock for millions of low-income households.”
The Institute for Fiscal Studies warned a further 600,000 people would lose £2,400 a year in universal credit payments because of plans to replace the work capability assessment with the much tighter assessment for Pips.
Sarah Hughes, the chief executive of the mental health charity Mind, said: “Mental health problems are not a choice – but it is a political choice to make it harder for people to access the support they need to live with dignity and independence. These reforms will only serve to deepen the nation’s mental health crisis.”
What is clear from this announcement is that Labour no longer stands for supporting the sick and vulnerable. Now it is all about balancing the books and to hell with the consequences.
