Thursday, March 27, 2025
Austerity is back
The paper says that in a damning revelation, the government’s own impact assessment said after the announcement that an estimated quarter of a million people, including 50,000 children, would be pushed into relative poverty by the end of the decade as a result of welfare reforms.
The assessment also estimated 3.2 million families would lose on average £1,720 per year compared to inflation in 2029 and 2030:
The government’s own analysis shows the largest group to be hit by Rachel Reeves’s disability benefit cuts are single women, the Women’s Budget Group has highlighted.
The feminist economic thinktank said single women make up 44 per cent of those losing out as a result of the chancellor’s welfare cuts announced in her spring statement, at an average of £1,610 a year.
Responding to today’s announcement, Dr Mary-Ann Stephenson, Director of the Women’s Budget Group, said: “We recognise the challenging situation facing the chancellor. However, the Government is making decisions that will seriously impact people’s lives up and down the country, particularly children, women and disabled people, based on forecasts that may not even materialise in order to meet its own self-imposed spending rules. This is deeply disappointing and misguided.”
Liberal Democrat leader, Ed Davey was excoriating about the cuts:
Welfare cuts are a “double whammy” hitting disabled people who cannot work while cutting support for their carers, Liberal Democrat Leader Ed Davey said.
The Government’s impact assessment estimated that a tightening of eligibility rules would see 800,000 people not receive the daily living component of personal independence payment (Pip) by 2029, although a “significant proportion” would keep access to the separate mobility component of the disability benefit.
As a result of the changes, a further 150,000 people will not receive carer’s allowance or the carer element of universal credit, the assessment said.
Mr Davey said: “These cuts will be a double whammy to the most vulnerable, hitting disabled people who cannot work while slashing support for the loved ones who care for them.
“Carers need more support, not less. Snatching away the little support these carers get will do nothing to help people into work; it will just put more pressure on already over-stretched carers, social care and the NHS.
“The Government is putting the big banks and gambling companies ahead of disabled people and carers. It is not just cruel, it is a false economy and I urge ministers to think again.”
But perhaps the most damning assessment from Labour perspective came from one of their own MPs. Kim Johnson, the Labour MP for Liverpool Riverside, warned “austerity is back”, saying that the announcement “confirms our worst fears”:
She said: “This assault on disabled people and those in need of support is nothing short of sadistically cruel.”
It really does feel as if austerity has returned.
