Opponents of benefit cuts in Glasgow joined other town and cities on the streets (Picture: Billy Knox)
Labour’s savage cuts to benefits for sick and disabled people go much further than anything proposed by the previous Tory government.
The government claims there is a “moral case”, but it wants to slash spending by £5 billion per year as part of its new austerity drive.
Universal Credit is for people who are out of work or on a low income. It includes a standard allowance that everyone receives and an additional health component for people with limited ability to work.
Deep cuts to the health component will reduce it from £97 a week to £50 a week for new claimants. This will cost sick and disabled people £2,800 per year. The rise in the standard allowance of just £7 a week will do little to address this.
Labour is also consulting on limiting the health component to people under the age of 22. Over 100,000 18-21 year olds currently claim this benefit and will lose out.
Most of the savings will come from tightening the criteria to claim Personal Independence Payments (Pip). This is a benefit for disabled people to cope with the extra costs of their impairment, whether or not they are in work.
Applicants will now need to score “at least 4 points in one daily living activity” to qualify for the daily living element. This includes people who, for example, need assistance to wash or get dressed.
According to the Resolution Foundation, between 800,000 and 1.2 million disabled people will lose entitlement to Pip payments worth between £4,200 and £6,300 per year. They also stand to lose any benefits linked to Pip entitlement, including carer’s allowance.
Helen Walker of the Carers UK charity said that “even more carers will struggle to afford essentials like food and heating”.
Over a third of people claiming Pip are doing so due to mental distress. Many of them will not now qualify.
Health secretary Wes Streeting has said “there’s an overdiagnosis” of mental distress. But Mind chief executive Sarah Hughes 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.”
Disabled people might be relieved to hear that the hated Work Capability Assessment (WCA) will be scrapped. But Labour is not doing this because of the distress and humiliation the assessments have caused. The change is primarily aimed at making more people look for work.
The Green Paper says there will be personalised support to help people meet career goals. But support services are already stretched. And all the tailored support in the world won’t make a difference if there are no suitable jobs available.
The Green Paper says that just 23 percent of bosses make adjustments in the workplace to make them accessible. The government’s main plan to address this is to launch “a review”.
The proposed cuts will drive more disabled people into poverty.
Disabled people are taking to the streets all over the country in opposition to these cuts. The whole movement needs to get behind them.
Anger at Labour on Leeds disability cuts protest
Anger at Labour’s austerity measures is bubbling out of homes and onto the streets.
Protests over the government’s £5 billion cuts to disability benefits took place in Glasgow, Edinburgh, Coventry, Bristol and elsewhere last week and more are planned this week.
In Leeds on Saturday afternoon, 200 people came out to protest against Labour’s freezing of Personal Independence Payments (Pip) from next year.
Despite a downpour of rain, protesters came together to stand firmly against the cuts to benefits.
Chants of “they say cut back; we say fight back” came from the young and angry group of protesters. Many of them were wearing Palestinian keffiyehs, having come from a protest just a few hours before over Israel’s attack on Gaza.
Trades council banners and placards reading “welfare not warfare” were there.
Speakers included trade unionists and the Labour MP for Leeds East, Richard Burgon, whose calls for a wealth tax were met with loud cheers from the protesters.
Issy, a student in Leeds, said, “The anti-Labour feeling was strong, the awareness that the richest in the country are benefitting from the suffering of the most vulnerable was keen and angry.”
Liz, who campaigned against the Tory’s austerity attacks, said that “those of us who fought to survive the Tory attacks for the last 15 years will fight to survive the attacks from Labour too! Protest not pity!”
The welfare cuts come just weeks after the announcement of an increase in “defence” spending of the same amount.
Labour is in trouble. The fight for welfare not warfare is angry and prepared to come out onto the streets to show it. It is critical that we organise collectively to fight Labour’s austerity and ensure that it doesn’t translate to gains for the far right.
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