THERE is no doubt that Labour’s proposed benefit cuts are a ‘violation of workers rights’ which will harm ill, disabled and poorer workers in particular.
Charity Z2K has found that people with severe disabilities – including double amputees and people with psychosis – could be affected by the disability benefits cuts. Meanwhile, Amnesty UK has called the cuts a ‘violation of human rights’.
It is an indictment of the Starmer-led Labour leadership that it has responded to the Tory manufactured hysteria about workers living off benefits by announcing the ‘biggest cuts to disability benefits on record’.
Even bourgeois charities have slammed the savage cuts as a ‘violation of human rights’ that could do great harm to the poorest people.
As a result of the ‘reforms’, the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) will ‘mug’ the poorest people and slash £5bn from the Welfare bill over the next five years.
Liz Kendall, the work and pensions secretary, is saying that the social security system ‘snares millions of people in a cycle of unemployment and inactivity, failing the very people it’s meant to be there for, as well as the taxpayers who foot the bill’.
She ignores the fact that without these benefits many people would starve!
Her proposals include tightening the eligibility criteria for personal independence payment (PIP), plus the health element of universal credit being frozen for current claimants and reduced for new claimants.
James Taylor, executive director of strategy at disability equality charity, Scope, commented about the proposed cuts that: ‘The biggest cuts to disability benefits on record should shame the government to its core. They are choosing to penalise some of the poorest people in our society.
‘Almost half of families in poverty include someone who is disabled. Life costs more if you are disabled. Ripping £5bn out of the system by 2030 will be a catastrophe for disabled people’s living standards and independence.
‘The government will be picking up the pieces in other parts of the system with pressure on an already overwhelmed NHS and social care, as more disabled people are pushed into poverty.’
Labour has claimed it will protect people with the most severe and long-term disabilities and health conditions. These people will no longer have to face regular assessments to get their disability benefits, and they will have their incomes protected.
However, charity Z2K has found that people it supports with severe disabilities could be affected by cuts to PIP – including ‘double amputees, stroke survivors and people with psychosis’.
The proposals will make it harder to qualify for the daily living component of PIP, by requiring that a claimant must ‘score’ at least four points under at least one activity in order to be eligible.
According to Z2K, a ‘significant number’ of people currently qualify for support by scoring between one and three points across a range of activities.
Anela Anwar, chief executive of Z2K, said: ‘These shocking and dangerous proposals would have a devastating effect on families who are already living in poverty. The plans make a mockery of the government’s commitments to tackle child poverty and the widespread reliance on food banks.
‘Despite the government’s rhetoric, the truth is that these are panicked cuts which represent a return to the same old failed approach of prioritising short-term savings over real reform. An approach which not only fails disabled people, but which has also been shown to fail to generate long-term savings for government. We need a social security system that we can all rely on in times of need.’
For new claims, the rate of the universal credit health element will be cut by £47 per week, from £97 per week in 2024 to £50 per week in 2026/2027.
There are 900,000 children living in a household where someone is eligible for ‘limited capability for work and work-related activity’, the main health-related element for universal credit.
The trade unions must not stand by and just watch this massive attack on workers’ living standards.
The trade unions must champion the poor that Labour is busily creating.
They must call a general strike to bring down the Labour government to go forward to a workers government and Socialism!
