Feeling the working-class anger against their proposed disability benefits reforms, it has been reported that prime minister and chancellor Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves are looking to soften the blow. The government plans to limit the eligibility criteria for Personal Independence Payments (PIP) and the work capability assessment component of Universal Credit. These benefits are available to disabled and unwell people who are both in work and unable to work.
The initial proposals would see over one million people lose their PIP, and 600,000 people would lose out from reforms to the work capability assessment. In many constituencies the number of people affected is more than the Labour MP’s parliamentary majority. Alongside removing universal winter fuel payments and keeping the two-child benefit cap, these attacks on working-class people contributed to the disastrous results for the pro-capitalist Labour Party in May’s local elections.
So it’s no wonder Starmer and Reeves are feeling the heat – rolling out the red carpet for big business while seeking to make working-class people pay with benefit cuts, new rounds of austerity and crumbling public services.
To stave off a rumoured rebellion by over 100 Labour MPs, 11 June’s spending review may contain reforms that mean fewer people lose their PIP. 200,000 would be freed from having this vital lifeline snatched away, but the figures speak for themselves; it would still mean hundreds of thousands of people losing out.
Instead of being wedded to placating ‘the markets’ with fiscal rules that mean working-class people have to pay while the profits of the super-rich go untouched, we need a socialist alternative to Starmer’s race to the bottom. We need a benefits system fit for purpose, based on support and what people need, not what the bosses can get away with. We need decent jobs with decent pay, share out the work with no loss of pay. The rotten capitalist system which Starmer and his ilk stand in the interests of won’t provide us with that. We need to take the wealth and resources in society out of the hands of the super-rich elite; nationalise the big firms and banks under democratic workers’ control and management to plan society to provide a decent standard of living for all.
Wales – Labour’s disability consultation farce
Swansea Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC) statement
Welsh disability cuts consultation cancelled
The Cardiff disability cuts consultation on 3 June was always going to be unfair, with half the proposals, the most important half, completely off the table for discussion.
The only face-to-face consultation for the whole of Wales has now been cancelled, after what we consider blatant and unlawful disability discrimination by the government’s Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) in arranging such an inaccessible venue at the last minute. We will still be protesting as planned at our meeting point.
Disabled people in Wales denied a voice
According to DWP email communications, there will now not be any in-person consultation in Wales on the disability cuts at all. We demand that any House of Commons vote on the proposals must not go ahead until we have had a full and genuine public consultation in Wales.
Fighting for our demands
The DWP has shown itself to be incapable of organising a fair consultation. We will run our own.
We invite disabled people and carers concerned about the disability cuts to get in touch with us. We will put your demands on paper in front of the DWP and MPs, and insist that they take notice.
We salute Cardiff Trades Union Council in its initiative in writing a strong, fighting, motion opposing disability cuts. This was voted on at the Trades Council Conference, and selected as its one motion to take to the Trades Union Congress (TUC), which represents 5.5 million workers.
The motion was moved by Socialist Party member Katrine Williams. It calls on the TUC to call a national demo against disability benefit cuts.
The disability cuts proposals are fatally flawed, and the ‘pathways to work’ green paper must be retracted. The government must start again on welfare reform, listening to disabled people and carers in a genuine process of co-production.
Swansea DPAC supports calls for an urgent debate on the burning question of political representation, and supports discussions on the need for a new workers’ party, based on the trade unions, that cuts across division, stands up for communities, and puts disabled people at the heart of everything it does.
