On the 18th March, the Labour party announced that it would be cutting £5 billion in welfare support for disabled people. The ‘Pathways to Work’ Green Paper that was released outlines how the Department for Work and Pensions plans to significantly reduce the amount of money that disability benefits claimants receive. This would be done in part by restructuring Personal Independence Payment (PIP) assessments so that they will be harder to pass. The severity and scale of this cut is totally unprecedented. To put things into perspective, in 2016 the Secretary of State for the Department of Work and Persons, Ian Duncan Smith, resigned over proposed welfare cuts which were only a third of what Labour is currently proposing. In other words, not even the Conservative party’s austerity measures were this drastic.
The figures that have come out over the past couple of weeks are extremely disturbing. Policy expert Professor Ben Geiger states that the cuts actually look closer to £9 billion. The New Economics Foundation says that 340,000 people will be pushed into poverty. The thinktank Disability Policy Centre says the impact will be £1.2 billion extra costs on the NHS and social services. From the Trussell Trust foodbank to celebrities such as Stephen Fry, the public is urging the government to rethink this barbarous decision.
The impact of these cuts are more than just abstract, distant numbers. 1 in 4 people are disabled at some point in their lives, meaning that these welfare cuts are likely to impact you or someone close to you. Importantly, the ‘Pathways to Work’ Green Paper targets young people in particular. The government plans to raise the age for claiming PIP from 16 to 18, and for claiming the health element of Universal Credit from 18 to 22. Moreover, for new claimants, the rate of weekly allowance will be cut in half, while for existing claimants their current allowance will stay frozen until 2029. Evidently, the government is bent on preventing disadvantaged young people from entering the welfare support system in the first place. However, support at this age is crucial, for allowing disabled people, a group who have historically been excluded from entering higher education, to live independently and leave home.
Another way that these cuts will affect young people is to do with mental health. Labour’s new PIP assessment points system disadvantages those who need support for mental health conditions and will not consider the different manifestations and impacts of a mental health condition. In our generation, the rate of those struggling with mental health problems is the highest it has ever been, with 1 in 5 children and young people affected. PIP allows people struggling with these challenges to improve their quality of life, and Labour cutting this support will only put more pressure on an already underfunded NHS.
The way in which Labour has gone about introducing the ‘Pathways to Work’ Green Paper is equally concerning. The government describes their plans as being part of a moral reform, where everyone deserves the chance to work. You have probably heard the rhetoric about people on benefits ‘taking the mickey’ and “gaming the system”. As Oxford students, we should be perceptive enough to see through this harmful messaging and understand that it is designed to shift blame away from the government. Moreover, the initial Green Paper neglected to provide any clear impact assessment of the cuts. Essentially, ministers were voting on a policy that they knew very little about. They have similarly provided no detail on the way that they plan to make up for the estimated shortfall of £2 billion as a result of the cuts. This proves not only that the policy is actually an inefficient way of raising money, but also that we may not know the full damage of the Green Paper scheme until much further down the line. Evidently, this Labour government cares as little about political transparency as it does for the security of the most disadvantaged people. Instead, by emphasising the cuts as being part of a moral agenda, they can justify their actions to the public.
Perhaps the only good news in all this is that there has been backlash. New organisations are starting up all around the UK to spread awareness. Crips Against Cuts, for instance, is a new grassroots movement of young people dedicated to fighting government cuts and building a supportive community. Only last week, Universities Against Disability Cuts UK was set up specifically to raise support through universities. UADC told The Oxford Blue:
“These cuts are dangerous for disabled people, for young disabled people looking for work and independence, for current Higher Education students, for prospective Higher Education students, for the families and carers of disabled people, and for educational institutions who will experience added pressure and demand to accommodate disabled students who will have access to little other support.”
The cruelty that this Labour government has shown in the ‘Pathways to Work’ plan is something that many of us students who voted for the first time last year could never have imagined. This is a malicious policy which targets and oppresses the people least able to fight back. We must recognise that these changes affect all of us, whether that be an underfunded NHS or a friend struggling with their mental health. We must demand better.