As predicted (Starmer offers ‘massive concessions’ on welfare bill to Labour rebels, 26 June), an attempt has been made to salvage the welfare bill. Discontented MPs and disabled people alike will welcome the assurance that people currently receiving personal independence payments (Pip) or the health element of universal credit will be protected from changes. But the episode is damaging, has caused thousands of disabled people needless worry, and may come to be seen as pivotal in Keir Starmer’s tenure.
There is something deeply invidious about having two classes of benefit recipients – the protected current recipients, and those making future claims. At the same time, it is clear that the benefits system does need reform and, in particular, needs to support people into work rather than taking a punitive and brutal approach to cost saving.
How Starmer has ended up in this position is fascinating, if it were not extraordinary for a government with such a majority and the potential to make radical and equitable change to be repeatedly wrongfooted. U-turns look weak and messy, and presenting them as a response to active listening is unlikely to convince anyone. Starmer claims not to be ideological, and there is the issue; policy is being shaped not by a coherent strategic vision and principle-driven aspirations for better lives, opportunities and genuine equality, but by economic necessity and caution.
It’s a flawed model, certain to intensify divisions between ministries, Labour members, taxpayers, benefit recipients and the wider electorate. There is major learning and reflection needed by the government; the optics have gone badly wrong, but the welfare reform chaos is a symptom of a much deeper political malaise.
Dr Melanie Henwood
Hartwell, Northamptonshire
I am a social worker and I support cutting Pips. I have encountered a number of young adults trapped in a cycle of welfare dependency, unemployment and chaotic lifestyles. They share a belief that the state must fund every aspect of life, and a lack of understanding that benefits come not “from the government” but are redistributed from taxation of the population.
Pip is often claimed on the basis of anxiety or depression, but the idea of working to support oneself, or seeking training or education to make work more attainable, is absent from their thinking. The answer? Probably a combination of education, early interventions and nudges towards culture change, including reducing the availability of Pip. In the long term the status quo won’t help the young people I work with.
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What is not being made clear in government statements and coverage of the cuts to disability benefits is the personal independence payment’s relationship to work. Pip is paid to help with the additional costs arising from disability. It is paid to people in work and out of work. It is crucial in enabling people to stay in work, paying for technical and personal support, health needs, travel and other costs. It also enables people who cannot work full-time to work. What will happen to these working people when they can no longer afford the additional costs? It’s clear the government does not understand the role of Pip in enabling work.
Jean Betteridge
Manchester
As we approach the parliamentary vote on the new welfare bill, spare a thought for the many Pip recipients who received the benefit when it was known as disability living allowance. I suspect, for many, the scars still linger from that government change to the system.
What that revealed was that disability allowance was not directed to those most in need of it due to their disability. Rather, receiving the new benefit depended upon one’s ability to fill out a 40-page form. Next, it depended on having the physical and mental resilience to challenge the result and take it to a tribunal. This was a protracted and stressful period of time. For many, who made it that far, the tribunal reversed the DWP scoring and people found that they had their old level of benefit reinstated. Just a shame that stress makes many medical conditions far worse for the individual.
Many years ago, I believed that the DWP wanted to help those with serious disabilities. These days, I have as much faith in them as they appear to have in disabled people (DWP letters now seem to be written with a subtext of “you’re a fraud and we’ll catch you”).
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