Labour warned it is 'undermining' its own welfare reforms with £5bn of benefits cuts

Labour is undermining its own welfare reforms with £5bn of savage cuts to disability benefits, campaigners and experts have warned.

In a bid to help people off work and into benefits, work and pensions secretary Liz Kendall announced a raft of changes to employment support, reforms to unemployment benefits, and a new ‘right to try’ meaning disabled people can try work without the risk of losing their benefits.

But the government is also tightening the criteria for who can access the PIP disability benefit and reducing the health element of universal credit for new claimants.

“A number of the changes proposed by the secretary of state today could have a positive impact on supporting more of those out of the labour market to enter work. But they risk being undermined by other measures which seek to deliver £5bn in welfare spending cuts which could hit the living standards of some of the most vulnerable people in society,” said Ben Harrison, director of the Work Foundation at Lancaster University.

Read more of Big Issue’s analysis of Labour’s benefit reforms:

• Benefit cuts are a ‘violation of human rights’ which will harm ill and disabled people, Labour warned
• Cuts, universal credit and PIP: Everything you need to know about Labour’s benefits overhaul
• How Labour’s changes to universal credit are going to impact millions of Brits

“In reducing and constraining access to health-related benefits, the government risks prioritising short-term cost savings over effectively reforming the welfare system for the long haul. For example, new claimants to the health-related element of universal credit stand to be £40 per week worse off as a result of the changes proposed today.”

Labour laid out its reforms as it attempts to battle the increasing number of people out of work due to long term sickness and disability.

Under-22s will be barred from claiming the health top up element of universal credit, while the minimum age to claim PIP will be raised to 18.

Claimants will need to score at least four points in a single criteria of the daily living allowance of PIP to qualify for the benefit, in addition to the current criteria of eight overall points. For example, somebody who “cannot cook a simple meal using a conventional cooker but is able to do so using a microwave” would score two points on the preparing food test, while somebody who needed prompting, supervision, or assistance to prepare or cook a healthy meal would score four points.

While Starmer has said there is both an economic and financial case to reforming welfare, Tom Pollard, head of social policy at the New Economics Foundation, said the changes were being driven by arbitrary financial targets.

“The cuts to benefits announced today have clearly been designed to meet a savings target imposed by the chancellor’s arbitrary and self-imposed fiscal rules, rather than ensuring ill and disabled people get the support they need. Cutting the income of those who need support will not address the underlying factors leading to more people becoming unwell and disabled, it will only make them worse,” said Pollard.

“Freezing or cutting support to those who are likely to be out of work for longer due to illness or disability will not help people to return to work.”

Labour has dropped Tory plans to replace PIP with vouchers and is also unlinking unemployment benefits from a person’s ability to work.

Those with the most severe illnesses and disabilities will no longer be subject to regular assessments, while face-to-face assessments will increase from a current rate of 7%.

Community Union’s president Steve McGurk said: “We strongly support the government’s ambition to get more people back into work, including the ‘right to try’ reform, but the wider reforms can’t come at the expense of disabled people.

“Community is deeply concerned by the impact that these benefit reforms will have on disabled workers across the country. In fact, the government risks driving disabled people out of the workplace because of a lack of benefit support negatively impacting their health. Community understands that this government has inherited a deeply challenging financial situation from the previous Conservative government. However, we must ensure that the burden of solving that challenge does not fall on disabled people in our society.”

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