Fight back against Labour’s attack on disabled people

As the Socialist goes to press, Labour chancellor Rachel Reeves is preparing her Spring Statement which will slash disability benefits and prepare the ground for swingeing cuts in the public sector. Socialist Party members have already been campaigning against these cuts, in the trade unions and on campaign stalls. Below is the text of the leaflet that has been distributed.

We need spending on welfare not warfare

Make the super-rich pay not disabled people

Since taking office, Keir Starmer’s Labour government have kept the Tory two-child benefit cap and reduced eligibility for pensioners’ winter fuel allowance. WASPI women were denied pension compensation. Starmer says he wants to “redesign the state”, this means massive cuts to public spending with the worst off in society facing the brunt. All while announcing his intention to increase spending on wars abroad, and the rich in Britain continue to rake in massive profits.

Now it is the turn of chronically ill and disabled people to be in the firing line. Liz Kendall, the Secretary of State for work and pensions, has announced savage cuts to disability benefits. How different have Liz Kendall’s statements been compared to Tory Chancellor Jeremy Hunt’s 2023 Autumn Statement which included a “renewed focus on getting disabled people into work”?

The main proposals are:

  • An overhaul of disability benefits to make only the most severely disabled eligible
  • Cuts to the health element of Universal Credit, including making people under 22 ineligible
  • And more face-to-face assessments

Over a million could lose eligibility for Personal Independence Payments (PIP) and 900,000 for the disability element of Universal Credit. People may also lose eligibility for the disability premium of pension credit, council tax rebates and housing benefit disability premiums.

Socialist Party members are supporting protests organised by Disabled People Against Cuts, trades councils, Unite Community branches and other organisations. We want the maximum possible unity around a fighting programme. We are campaigning for the trade unions, which are the largest democratic organisations of disabled people, to use their authority and resources to campaign for rights and benefits for disabled people.

Trade unions must lead

A weekend demonstration organised by the TUC against this new round of vicious austerity could act as a launchpad for sustained trade union action against all the attacks in the pipeline from this government – including the below inflation pay offers in the public sector, the ramping up of local council administered cuts, massive job cuts in the civil service, and tuition fee rises for students.

Disabled workers are paid less than non-disabled workers and are more likely to be on zero-hours contracts. We call for a ban on zero-hours and insecure contracts. Existing legal protections and workplace initiatives used to identify and remove the workplace barriers disabled workers face are not effectively addressing the scale and seriousness of the issues disabled workers encounter. We call for trade union workplace reps to be backed by their unions to support disabled workers.

Mental health charity Mind then called for the establishment of a commission led by disabled people to redesign the benefit system from one based on sanctions which “doesn’t get mental health”. The Labour government has commissioned Sir Charlie Mayfield to investigate how “governments and businesses can work together to identify the scale, trends, obstacles and opportunities for companies when recruiting and retaining ill and disabled people.” But their starting point is maximising profit and they cannot be trusted to deal with these questions, as has been proven.

Capitalism makes us unwell

The health and social care secretary, Wes Streeting, has complained about the “overdiagnosis of mental health conditions”.

Life for millions now is dominated by capitalist crisis. Young people have only known crisis – the world economic crisis of 2007-08, the pandemic and now the re-election of Trump. Alongside this, they have seen the tripling of university tuition fees under the coalition government and the further increase in tuition fees announced in the autumn. Most students now leave university with a mountain of debt to move into insecure housing and employment. It is not surprising that mental health has deteriorated.

There is no prospect of the general improvements in living conditions which older generations benefited from.

We need our own party

The Labour government is continuing the Tories’ dirty work. They represent the interests of the same group in society – the bosses. And as Labour is backing the bosses, we need a party of our own to fight back – a new mass workers’ party with a fighting socialist programme.

The Socialist Party fights for the trade union movement to take the steps now to convene such a political voice for workers and young people – including disabled people – that can fight against these attacks. This includes backing every step towards the building of such a party. Socialist Party members stand alongside trade unionists and campaigners in elections as part of the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition.

The Socialist Party fights for the socialist transformation of society. That means taking the wealth which exists out of private hands and placing it under the democratic control and management of the working-class majority, to put an end to this brutal assault of the rich on the lives of working class and young people once and for all.

Exposing the benefit cut myths

Disability benefit claimants in the South West

To justify Reeves’s attacks on disability benefits, there has been a flurry of recent news reports on the supposed huge increases in welfare spending. These reports come despite evidence from the Office for Budget Responsibility that total spending on social security as a proportion of GDP is predicted not to increase at all next year, and then to stay the same level for the next four years. It is predicted to be lower this year than it was for every year between 2010 and 2015.

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) estimates a fraud rate of PIP claims at 0.48%. £23 billion of social support goes unclaimed each year.

Cuts to benefits

Cuts to PIP will also affect housing benefit disability premiums, council tax support disability premiums, carers’ allowance and all other premiums and extra top-ups and discounts. The Resolution Foundation has estimated that as many as 1.2 million claimants are set to be worse off by £4,300 a year by 2029 – a total loss of over £10 billion.

Limited Capability for Work and Work-Related Activity, Statutory Sick Pay and other premiums for long-term sickness are set to be frozen then scrapped in the coming years. These huge cuts to the disability top ups on Universal Credit will effect 900,000 people. Over the next few years this top-up will be cut by 16%, a further £4 billion of cuts.

Covid-19

Reports have shown that deteriorating health conditions after the Covid-19 pandemic has added to the rise in the number of people receiving disability and out of work due to long-term sickness benefits. Covid-19 has had an impact on the physical and mental health of the UK population. 2 million living with long covid, and with lots of support services cut to the bone and more cuts on the way.

Mental health

Poor mental health costs the economy approximately £118 billion per year according to research from the Mental Health Foundation. Benefit cuts are not the answer and will not lead to savings for the government in the long term.

You cannot punish members of the public who are ill because they cannot access appropriate health services which allow them to go back to work. The crisis in the NHS has led to massive waiting times and worsened many people’s health conditions. Cuts to alcohol and drug addiction support, and social care mean many people do not have the support they need to be able to work.

Model motion to be adapted for your trade union branch or trades council

Oppose disability benefit cuts

This conference opposes all the cuts to the welfare system and recognises:

  • The failings and unpopularity of Work Capability and Personal Independence Payment assessments
  • The cuts to the Disability Employment Adviser role
  • The failings of the private sector involvement in welfare delivery
  • Backlogs and inadequate resources to deliver Access to Work
  • The need to improve support for disabled claimants
  • The biggest category for DWP losing tribunals is disability discrimination

This conference notes the new Labour government’s intent to continue the Tory attacks on the social security system and their threats of attacks on the disability benefits in 2025.  The Tory plans predicted nearly half million disabled claimants would face lower benefits or increased conditionality to save £3 billion by 2028-29.

This conference recognises that trade unions are the largest democratic organisations of disabled people and instructs the National Executive Committee to:

  • Work with democratic disabled people’s organisations and other trade unions to promote demands for a social security system that meets the needs of disabled people
  • Campaign for assessments to be taken out of the hands of fat-cat providers and returned to public sector delivery in the DWP with a complete overhaul of the system to support claimants
  • Oppose the Government plans to merge the PIP and working age assessments which are based on cost cutting, reducing benefits to individuals and a harsher benefit regime for disabled people
  • Campaign for an end to the target driven regime within the DWP which damages the quality of services to the public
  • Put the emphasis on getting a quality decision right at the outset to reduce the need for the public to go through the hardship and length of time to dispute and appeal decisions

Conference further instructs the National Executive Committee to call for the TUC Disabled Workers’ Committee to organise a demonstration and lobby of Parliament in support of these demands, and for the TUC to organise a weekend demonstration against Labour austerity as a launchpad for sustained trade union action in defence of workers and young people.

Building the fightback

Socialist Party branches have organised campaign stalls and taken part in the demonstrations opposing Labour’s disability benefit attacks.

Plymouth campaign stall

People made a beeline for our stall to express their anger and disgust at the government once again penalising the most vulnerable members of our society rather than taking it from the super-rich. Labour were described as “worse than the Tories” by more than one person.

A lot of people voted Labour in Plymouth, not because they were popular, but because they wanted the Tories out and now feel betrayed by Sir Keir Starmer’s government. The message that we are calling for a new workers’ party that does represent us was welcomed, as the establishment parties won’t stand up for the working class.

Alex Sampson

Welfare not warfare: Rage in Bristol demonstration against benefit cuts

The mood at the demo was combative, with people wanting to get organised and fight back.  This latest stab in the back for disabled people had enraged and motivated people. Many disabled speakers talked about how they are already being failed by the welfare system, the lack of accessible council housing, and all of the myriad of ways capitalism makes life unbearable. One speaker spoke of how her money will be cut to spend more on armaments which would kill and disable people.

The demonstration allowed local Green MP Carla Denyer to speak from the platform. She hypocritically spoke of her disgust at the cuts to welfare. However, heckles from the crowd asking “what about council cuts” forced her to defend the Green-led council’s £51 million cuts to the city’s services. Her defence was that the party was fighting for funding from central government. Presumably this fighting very hard is asking Keir Starmer ‘please Sir can we have some more’.

A real fight would mean refusing to pass on cuts to local people (including £28 million from children in care) and moving a needs budget that doesn’t make cuts. Combative Bristolians would rush to this fight if only the council had the political will to do it.

Lindsey Morgan

Coventry Crips Against the Cuts protest

Coventry and Nuneaton Socialist Party members spoke alongside other trade union activists and disability campaigners, demanding the fightback against these cuts which, if passed, will result in the deaths of thousands of the most vulnerable in society. We spoke about the need to vote for trade unionists and socialists in the upcoming Warwickshire County Council elections, where twelve firmly anti-cuts candidates will be standing in nearby Nuneaton and Bedworth as part of the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition.

We also raised the need to link up grassroots campaigns with the trade unions both nationally and locally, putting forward immediate steps to affiliate local trade union branches with the anti-cuts campaign, as well as questioning why Labour-affiliated trade unions are funding a party that attacks the rights and benefits of their disabled members.

Eve Miller

Swindon

People came up to talk to us about our posters, “Starmer’s Labour means austerity and war”.

There are no local elections in Swindon this year, but every seat in the council will be up in 2026 and people were receptive to the idea of making an independent, anti-cuts stand next year.

We’re building for a public meeting in Swindon on 7 April on the topic of ‘Welfare, not warfare’ for anyone under threat from Labour’s cuts, trade unionists and anti-war campaigners to discuss how we can fight back against the escalating attacks from Westminster and fight for a socialist world.

Scott Hunter