Labour’s rushed cuts to benefits will see severely disabled people plunged into deep poverty

After weeks of speculation, the government finally launched its anxiously-awaited green paper on Tuesday (18 March). The paper sets out plans for sweeping cuts to disability benefits, which the government estimates will mean a £5bn reduction in spending by 2029/2030.

The most significant measure announced in the green paper is the shocking and dangerous proposal to significantly restrict eligibility for personal independence payment (PIP), the disability benefit for working-age adults.

The government plans to make it even harder to qualify for the ‘daily living’ component of PIP, by requiring disabled people to score a minimum of four points in at least one activity to be eligible.

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Estimates suggest that the measures could see more than 800,000 disabled people lose at least £4,200 a year, although the government has yet to publish full details of the impact of the plans.

It’s clear that the plans have been rushed through instead of being properly thought out. The green paper provides no explanation as to why ministers have chosen this particular measure to restrict PIP, nor does it refer to any evidence that was drawn on when designing it.

This is exactly the type of ‘salami slicing’ of the benefits bill that Liz Kendall criticised when first taking up the role. Media reports have suggested that the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) was given a savings target by the Treasury and that reforms were designed with this aim in mind, although this is denied by ministers.

As a result of being rushed through, the plans are very poorly-targeted and will see some of the most severely disabled people in our society having their support slashed. The government argues that this change will mean that PIP is ‘focused’ more on disabled people ‘with higher needs’, but evidence from Z2K’s advice services suggests that those who will lose out as a result of the plans include double amputees, people with psychosis and stroke survivors.

People whose lives are deemed to be the most severely impacted by their conditions, those receiving the ‘enhanced’ rate of PIP, will be among those denied support.

Disabled people who are impacted by these cuts stand to lose between £314 and £470 a month, which would be between one-third and one-half of the non-housing costs income of a typical single disabled person who receives universal credit and is not in work.

Those who also receive health-related support through universal credit stand to lose out even further. Under its plan to abolish the work capability assessment from 2028/29, entitlement to the £416 a month health element of universal credit would be determined by whether a disabled person is entitled to the daily living component of PIP.

Because of this, a disabled person who loses their entitlement to the daily living component of PIP as a result of the cuts would then also lose out on the health element of universal credit. We have calculated that even taking into account the meagre £3/week increase to the basic rate of the universal credit that the government announced as part of these plans, this would mean an income cut of a staggering £717 a month for a disabled person, equivalent to almost two-thirds of a typical single disabled person’s non-housing costs income.

The green paper sets out that the cuts will be brought forward through primary legislation, which means there will be a bill going through parliament which MPs can vote on. It is vital that we do everything we can to challenge these dangerous and ill-considered plans, and persuade MPs to speak out. This is why we have just launched a new email template to help people to write to their MP and ask them to challenge the plans in just a few clicks.

If the government is serious about bringing forward meaningful reform to our social security system, it should abandon these dangerous, ill-conceived plans that will force disabled people to choose between eating and heating. Instead, the government should be looking to create a social security system that we can all be proud of, one that is there for us all, especially when we need it most.

Anela Anwar is the chief executive at anti-poverty charity Z2K.

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