In recent weeks, I have been contacted by hundreds of constituents, angry and anxious about the government’s plans to cut disability benefits.
These planned cuts would see millions denied Personal Independence Payments (PIPs), whilst Universal Credit top-ups are cut in real terms for new claimants and denied altogether to many young people.
Scope has called them the “biggest cuts to disability benefits on record” — a damning indictment considering the austerity inflicted on disabled people by the last Conservative government. Anyone who paid attention to the first round of cuts could tell you that these cuts will not do what the government is claiming. The OBR has been so far unable to produce any evidence that cutting the incomes of ill and disabled people will get more people into employment.
Quite the opposite in fact. There is a mounting body of evidence that shows how hardship, anxiety around losing benefits and the threat of conditionality actually impede people from engaging with employment support in a way that gets them back into the workplace. The last government repeatedly suppressed a report it commissioned on benefits sanctions, which showed that they actually slowed people’s progress into work.
On the other hand, there is ample evidence that these cuts will be devastating for disabled people’s independence and incomes. At a time when bills are rising across the board, the DWP’s own analysis suggests that they will push 250,000 people in poverty by 2030 — including 50,000 children.
1 in 5 families with a disabled member will be worse off as a result of these cuts. PIP is a gateway benefit, entitling family members to claim other benefits to support their loved ones. Half of the UK’s 1 million carer’s allowance claims, for instance, are tied to PIP, leaving many families face a double-whammy of cuts.
These cuts are likely to leave people poorer and sicker, leaving more people reliant on NHS and social care services. When families can no longer afford to care for their loved ones, this is likely to drive more people into the formal care system too. Far from creating “savings”, these cuts merely shift costs from central government onto households and local authorities, who are less equipped to cope with them.
Some of the government’s reforms are welcome. The rollout of a ‘Right to Try’ guarantee would mean people who accept a job offer are not subjected to automatic re-assessment if their job doesn’t work out. This is a compassionate and pragmatic policy which removes a big disincentive for people to re-enter the workforce. Sadly, it will be totally undermined by the sheer scale of these cuts.
Yes, the number of people who are claiming sickness and disability benefits is rising. It is worrying that this seems to come as such a surprise to some. We live in a country with an ageing population where health services were starved of investment for a decade. There are many people on NHS waiting lists who would much rather be healthy enough to return to work.
Mental health provision remains inadequate. Every week, I hear from constituents affected by mental health issues. There are well-established correlations between the mental ill health we experience as a society and the normalised austerity, low-quality work, entrenched inequality, crumbling public services, unaffordable housing and escalating living costs that characterise life in mid-2020s Britain.
Rising claims are rooted in the social realities of demographic ageing and economic decline. We need solutions that get to the root of these issues. Putting our heads in the sand and cutting support to those worst-affected by them will only make these problems worse, costing us more in the long run.
Continuing the Tories’ disgraceful legacy on benefits is not the change this government was elected to enact. This is increasingly borne out in dismal polling but there is still time to change course.
The Labour Party created the welfare state as we know it. We should be embracing this legacy. Because the truth is that any one of us may need to fall back on our social security system at any point in our lives. When that happens, we need a well-funded safety net in place.
If the safety net is cut, don’t be surprised when more people fall through it. My biggest fear of all is that we may ultimately count the cost of cuts in lost lives. One study attributed 330,000 excess deaths in Britain between 2012-2019 to the last round of austerity and cuts.
We need a new approach focused on supporting people back into work that centres more support, better jobs and investment in our NHS. To fund this, the government should follow the money. Whilst disabled people bore the brunt of vicious cuts under the last government, UK billionaires’ wealth more than trebled. Taxing the rich comes with its own challenges. However, these are challenges the government must rise to if it is going to reverse our country’s trajectory of decline. You do not cut your way to growth.
These cuts would be the worst of all worlds. I remain resolutely opposed and will be voting against them if they come to pass. But it is not too late for the government to think again.
I urge them to do so.
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Source: Politics