Diane Abbott says she has ‘no sympathy’ with the idea that cutting benefit payments will get people back into work ahead of a huge DWP announcement
Diane Abbott has warned voters will turn their back on Labour if it announces swingeing welfare cuts on top of winter fuel changes.
The Labour veteran says she has “no sympathy” with the idea that slashing payments will get people back into work. Her comments come a day ahead of Work and Pensions Secretary Liz Kendall announcing plans to slash billions from the benefit bill in a drive to get people back to work.
Ms Abbott told the BBC’s Today programme: “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.
“I have no sympathy with the idea that it’s a lifestyle choice.” She said the Government should instead bring in a wealth tax of 2% on people with assets worth over £10million to plug gaps in public finances.
The Government says it needs to act to tackle the growing number of people on long-term sickness benefits. But following a backlash from backbench MPs and charities, Ms Kendall is expected to drop reported plans to freeze Personal Independence Payments (PIP) for the disabled, claimed by more than three million.
The savings set to be announced are thought to be around £6billion. Hackney MP Ms Abbott said: “We’re an older society, we’re a poorer society at certain levels. I was at my local food bank and they reminded me that years ago you didn’t have food banks. Now you have people who are working who go to a food bank. We’re older, we’re poorer and yes, we’re sicker.”
Ms Abbott claimed that a lot of employers “don’t want to employ people who suffer from chronic depression and mental illness”. And she warned Keir Starmer that cuts will backfire at the next election.
She said: “The next general election will be fought not on foreign policy, but on what’s happening domestically. And there are so many people, as the years go on, who will look at the cuts we’ve made to welfare, look at the cuts we’ve made since the fuel allowance and think, is this my Labour Party?”
Meanwhile, Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham urged “caution” on benefit changes. Writing in The Times newspaper, Mr Burnham said he agreed that the welfare system needed “a radical overhaul”, but said the Government should focus on helping people into work rather than simply cutting benefits.
He said: “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.”
It comes after Health Secretary Wes Streeting warned of an “overdiagnosis” of some mental health conditions. Treasury minister Emma Reynolds said “some colleagues are jumping to conclusions about our plans before they’ve heard them”. She told the BBC: “We’ll set out further details, but the severely disabled and the most vulnerable will always get support, and there will always be a safety net.
“And some colleagues are jumping to conclusions about our plans before they’ve heard them, so I just urge them to be patient.”
And she told Times Radio: “I’m not going to comment on all the speculation that’s been in the newspapers but what I will say is that we are determined to reform social security according to our values. We are a Labour government, we believe in the dignity of work, we believe in equality and social justice and there are far too many people, especially young people, one in eight young people not in employment education or training, who are frankly who’ve just been left behind by the system, locked out of work and it’s too binary.
“Either you can work or you can’t work but there are plenty of people who are in that latter category who have been told they can’t work and who are not getting the help they need to get back into the labour market and that is a system that’s failing them, it’s failing young people, it’s failing employers and ultimately also failing the taxpayer.
“So if we don’t do anything now at all this benefits bill will rise to about £70 billion by the end of the decade and that’s just not sustainable.”