Keir Starmer’s Cabinet will meet on Tuesday to sign-off a controversial package of reforms to sickness and disability benefits – before the plans are announced to MPs
Keir Starmer has been warned he is making the “wrong choices” as the government sets out plans to slash billions from welfare.
Sharon Graham, the Unite General Secretary, compared the move to last year’s cut to winter fuel payments, saying: “We are pitting the poorest against the poorest.” The comments come as Mr Starmer’s Cabinet meets on Tuesday morning to sign-off a controversial package of reforms to sickness and disability benefits.
Work and Pensions Secretary Liz Kendall will then address the Commons – setting out the proposals in a long-awaited government green paper. Despite major unrest among Labour MPs over a leak of the proposals, the government is ploughing ahead with plans to slash billions from the welfare bill.
Writing in The Mirror, Ms Graham, who has previously clashed with the Labour leadership, said: “Everybody wants to get people into work – it’s good for them and it’s good for the economy. But you can’t have a situation where you’re forcing people with disabilities back to work when they are unable to work. That is not the sort of society that we want to live in.”
She added: “Some of the decisions that have been made, if you closed your eyes, you would not think it was a Labour government making them.”
General Secretary of Unison, Christina McAnea, who has been loyal to Mr Starmer, also warned: “Hitting those least able to speak up for themselves is never acceptable.”While she said bad decisions by the Tories had left the new Labour government “in a corner financially”, she added: “That’s no excuse for ministers to go after the most vulnerable and contemplate freezing personal independence payments.
“If the government wants to cut welfare spending, the focus should be on making work pay. That means acting against employers paying poverty wages and supporting those able to work into the jobs market. Not penalising those who are, in many cases, are too ill or disabled to ever work.”
It follows rare public criticism from the Trades Union Congress (TUC) General Secretary Paul Nowak, who warned the government last week not to repeat the mistakes of Tory austerity with controversial cuts to benefits.
On Monday, Ms Kendall promised to ensure “trust and fairness in the social security system” as No10 said there was a “moral and economic case” for reforming benefits. Speaking in the Commons, she said: “I want to say there has understandably been lots of speculation about the government’s reforms to social security.
“I want to assure the House, and most importantly the public, that we’ll be coming forward with our proposals imminently, to ensure there is trust and fairness in the social security system, and to ensure it’s there for people who need it now, and for years to come.”
But she is expected to set out plans to tighten eligibility criteria to make it harder to qualify for Personal Independence Payments (PIP) – a key disability benefit. A leak of the plans suggested the government is seeking to cut around £6billion – with £1billion ploughed back into the system to help people search for work.
Proposals to freeze PIP – so it does not increase in line with inflation next year – are understood to have been dropped after massive opposition last week. Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham waded into the row on Monday, saying the proposals risked trapping “too many people in poverty”.
He warned: “I would share concerns about changing support and eligibility to benefits while leaving the top-down system broadly in place. It would trap too many people in poverty. And to be clear: there is no case in any scenario for cutting the support available to disabled people who are unable to work.”
The Labour MP Steve Witherden told MPs on Monday in the Commons tens of thousands of disabled people could be pushed into poverty. He warned ministers: “I am concerned that the rumoured cuts will not help people into work, but will instead drive people into further destitution.”
Labour veteran Diane Abbott also said voters will turn their back on Labour if it announces swingeing welfare cuts on top of winter fuel changes. Ms Abbott said: “I think being on welfare is very depressing. It’s very humiliating. It sort of brings you down, but I have no sympathy with the idea that the way to get people out of welfare is to cut the money they have to live on.”
She also said the government should introduce a wealth tax on the super-rich with assets over £10million to plug gaps in the public finances.
Alan Johnson – a former Work and Pensions Secretary under Tony Blair – told The Mirror there were “all kinds of arguments” in favour of a wealth tax. But he said: “But it’s to pay for Sure Start centres, better hospitals, and better schools. You don’t introduce taxes to pay the price of society’s failure i.e to keep working age people out of work. That would be ludicrous.”
He also insisted the government was “absolutely right” to tackle the numbers of people claiming PIP and sickness benefits. But pressed on whether people who are disabled should have their benefits reduced, he replied: “No, and I’m pretty sure that won’t be the outcome here.” He added: “It’s not about cutting payments for the severely disabled. I think what this should be about is how do you help people find work.”
Chancellor Rachel Reeves also told Bloomberg that current spending on welfare was not sustainable. She said: “Every day an additional 1,000 people are going onto Personal Independence Payments, disability benefits. That is not sustainable”