Ministers are facing a backlash over planned disability welfare changes, but Rachel Reeves on Thursday resisted calls to abandon the cuts.
After ruling out a U-turn, pressure is building on the UK chancellor to tweak qualification rules to protect many disabled people from being stripped of their benefits. On Thursday, she said the government was “reviewing the criteria”, but ministers are yet to release details.
This week, the Guardian revealed that ministers were to offer mutinous Labour MPs an olive branch to help avert a major rebellion over the plans.
Under the Pip plans, which will introduce a “four-point rule”, claimants would not qualify unless they score a minimum of four points on a single daily living activity. Assessments score the difficulty from 0 to 12 that people face in a range of living activities such as preparing and eating food, communicating, washing and getting dressed.
The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) estimates the cuts could push 250,000 people into relative poverty after housing costs by 2029-30, including 50,000 children.
The Guardian spoke to four households after scores of people responded to an online callout asking how people could be affected.
‘I really didn’t think Labour would be so heartless’
There are some things that Neil needs extra support with: cooking meals, washing clothes, changing bedsheets, cleaning his bungalow. The 50-year-old in Gateshead was working in banking in 2019 when he suffered a bleed to the brain related to a stroke he had aged four.
Six years later, Neil says he still suffers with frequent falls, severe headaches and losing use of his dominant hand, so he relies on care, which he can afford due to the personal independence payment (Pip). But under Labour’s “four-point rule”, Neil would lose everything.
“There is no chance of me being able to afford [that care],” he says.
Neil gets £187.45 a week from Pip, but does not score four in any daily living category. He is angry and worried at the risk of debt, facing dilemmas of “heat or eat”, and being unable to even go out for a coffee. “We’ve all got to have some enjoyment in life, otherwise what’s the point.”
After voting Labour last summer, Neil says he has lost faith in the party. “I really didn’t think Labour would be so heartless. I had to close my membership, I just couldn’t support them any more.
“From a personal point of view, I feel like a scrounger, that’s how the Labour party has made me feel. And it’s not fair, we’re just trying to live life as best we can.”
‘I get that cost savings are needed but there are better ways of doing it’
The government says its welfare changes are needed to encourage people with disabilities to work. But Jo, a 46-year-old in Cumbria who suffers from pain, fatigue and cognitive and balance issues related to spina bifida from birth, says the proposals will have the exact opposite effect and push disabled people out of the workplace.
“It disgusts me really, because when this first came out, the rhetoric was [framing Pip] as an out-of-work benefit. It’s not!” Jo says. “It keeps a lot of people able to work.” She says Pip allows her to continue working part-time for a local charity. But losing it, because she does not pass the “four-point rule”, would force her to quit the job.
“Pip is a lifeline to a lot of people, and I don’t say that lightly. They really need to think about the actual impact it’s going to have,” says Jo, who is a single mother with a 17-year-old daughter. She urged the government to delay a vote until after the government’s consultation, which ends on 30 June. “I get that cost savings are probably needed but there are better ways of doing it.”
‘It seems like disabled people’s only value lies in whether they can work or not’
Tim, 53, in Somerset was diagnosed in 2007 with muscular dystrophy, a degenerative disease. He gets £103.10 a week from Pip and his wife, Ginny, 49 – with whom he has two school-age daughters – is his part-time carer, meaning she gets carer’s allowance.
But Tim would fail the four-point rule. That would also mean that Ginny, because the person she cares for would no longer be eligible for Pip, would lose her £210.68 a month carer’s allowance.
Tim has worked as a film-maker and more recently a casual library assistant, but for the last four years it has been difficult to find work because of his mobility and communication issues. He also experiences regular falls.
It feels “as if disabled people are lower down the pecking order in their importance to society, it seems like their only value lies in whether they can work or not”, says Ginny. Tim says the government should tax the super-rich to raise revenue rather than cut welfare spending for vulnerable people.
‘This is a party allegedly founded on welfare principles’
In the voting booth last summer, Richard, a 62-year-old in Welwyn Garden City, voted Labour for the first time. But in light of the party’s planned welfare changes, he says: “Never again.”
“I will not forget this,” says Richard, who has rheumatoid arthritis. He adds that many people he has spoken to locally seem to be abandoning Labour over its welfare policies and weighing up voting for Reform UK, which has been trying to portray itself as more pro-welfare.
Richard was awarded £101.35 a week last year, but would fail the four-point rule and lose Pip, which he spends on support for cleaning, transport, help with bathing and other care.
He believes fluctuating conditions are not treated adequately by the DWP. “I could push a hoover around today,” he says, whereas some weeks he cannot move to the front door without constant discomfort.
“This is a party allegedly founded on welfare principles,” he says, adding: “Come on Labour MPs: find some moral backbone, and find ways to support vulnerable people.”
