MPs must vote down Labour's benefits cuts – the health of the nation is at stake

Early in the morning on Friday 27 June, in response to more than 120 Labour MPs who signed a reasoned amendment that would halt the government’s controversial and dangerous benefits bill in its track, the government finally offered to make changes.

In a letter to MPs the government proposed a series of tweaks to the Personal Independence Payment and Universal Credit Bill.

As soon as these changes were leaked, some previously critical MPs began to waver. Most notably, the amendment’s main author did the early morning media round praising the government for listening. The reasoned amendment was retracted as everything was now going to be OK.

But what do those affected by the cuts – disabled people – think?

Well, organisations like my own, Disability Rights UK, wholeheartedly reject them. 

Alongside Crips Against Cuts, National Survivor User Network (NSUN), Mad Youth Organise, Just Treatment, Disabled People Against Cuts and Taking the PIP, we released a joint statement rejecting the government’s proposed ‘concessions’ to their dangerous benefit cut proposals.

Our biggest concern is that the government will create a two-tiered benefits system that condemns future generations of disabled people to devastating cuts. 

Taken at face value the government is rowing back on some of the worst aspects of its original plans, by excluding existing benefit recipients from the need score at least four points from a single descriptor to qualify for the daily living component of PIP, which would have led to almost 700,000 people losing support. Furthermore, it has pledged that the health element of universal credit will rise at least in line with inflation for existing claimants.

But in reality the government is still attempting to slash billions of pounds from a system that doesn’t provide enough support as it stands. Their decision to only exempt current claimants from the worst cuts, those to PIP and universal credit health, will condemn at least 400,000 people to poverty. 

Read more:

• I’m a Labour MP and this is why I still can’t support the government’s disability benefits cuts
• Rough sleeping in London hits record high amid warnings of benefit cuts making things worse
• It never crossed my mind I might need disability benefits. Now I don’t know where I’d be without PIP

Many MPs have seen through these hollow concessions. Dr Simon Opher, Labour MP for Stroud, promised his constituents that he would still vote against the bill despite these concessions, saying: “The ‘concessions’ look more like an attempt to sort a political problem, rather than a serious review of how best to support disabled people and those with long term health issues.”

While the Department for Work and Pensions was making desperate attempts to come up with concessions that would keep a major rebellion at bay, their colleagues in the Department of Health and Social Care were announcing huge funding increases for NHS services. 

These increases, have been one of the major “successes” that Labour MPs have had to hang their hats on. A reason to be positive about the trajectory their government has put the nation on.

However, much of the NHS’s future improvement will be reliant on significant improvements in preventive health policy. In fact, according to experts at The King’s Fund, for the government to tackle the NHS’s issues, preventive healthcare should be the “core business and main focus of the future healthcare system”.

A key tenet of preventative health policy is ensuring that the population is more physically active. However, as we all know, scientific evidence indicates that even small amounts of physical activity can provide health benefits and improve wellbeing. Science tells us that it can help improve confidence, concentration, coordination and motor skills.  

As the chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Health, Opher is right to dismiss the concessions. Because these cuts could make his constituents sicker.

Shockingly, new research from Get Yourself Active and More In Common has made it clear that this two-tiered system will undermine any future NHS progress.

Cutting benefit support will undermine action on preventative health because, according to this new research, 67% of PIP recipients use some or all of their payment to support their ability to be physically active. Worryingly, 51% say they would be less active if they lost their payments. 

I asked David Finch, assistant director of the Healthy Lives team at the UK’s most prestigious health think tank, the Health Foundation, what he made of our new research and what it means in light of the government’s proposed concessions. 

He told me: “Protecting entitlements for existing recipients is very welcome, but there will be potential new claimants who would no longer be able to access support just at the moment their health is starting to affect their day-to-day lives, and now be at risk of it deteriorating further and faster.”

We know these “concessions” have only come about because of the tidal wave of resistance created by disabled people and our allies in the House of Commons over the last couple of months. MPs must understand, as David explained to me: “Rather than supporting health and helping people remain or move into work, these reforms could mean a backward step worsening the health of millions”. 

When the government first proposed these changes, they underestimated the power of the disabled people’s movement. I believe that the MPs who listened to us, who have stood with us against these cuts to PIP and universal credit, will see through this political manoeuvre and these shambolic concessions.

Time is not on our side, but our movement will use every hour, every minute and every second to pile the pressure on politicians. We are united in proclaiming that nothing less than voting down this bill will be acceptable. 

The health of the nation is at stake.

Mikey Erhardt is policy and campaigns officer at Disability Rights UK.

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