Leading anti-poverty and disability charities, including the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and Disability Rights UK, have written to the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, Liz Kendall. The charities warn that the UK Government must properly engage with disabled people’s views when it launches its consultation on reforms to health and disability benefits this Spring, rather than engaging in a ‘box-ticking exercise’.
The letter follows a major legal case in England in which the previous Conservative government’s consultation on proposals to cut incapacity benefits was ruled unlawful. The Tories planned to restrict eligibility for incapacity benefits, which would have meant 424,000 people with serious mobility or mental health problems being denied extra Universal Credit worth over £400 a month.
Documents disclosed during the legal case suggested that the plans would push up to 100,000 disabled people into absolute poverty. The High Court found that the previous government’s consultation on these plans was ‘misleading and unfair’.
The judge said that the previous government did not make clear that disabled people affected by the plans would lose out on over £400 a month, or that cost-savings were a ‘primary rationale’ for its proposals.
Immediately following the High Court decision, the Labour Government announced its intention to re-consult on the previous government’s plans.
The letter notes that this marks a departure from previous ministerial statements, which had indicated that the current government would bring forward its own measures to reform the health and disability benefits system.
Chancellor Rachel Reeves confirmed last week that the government will set out its plans for reform of the health and disability benefits system before the Spring Statement.
Anela Anwar, Chief Executive of anti-poverty charity Z2K, who co-ordinated the letter, said: “It is deeply disappointing to learn that this government wants to revive the previous government’s discredited and dangerous plans to remove vital financial support for seriously ill and disabled people.
“The current government has been critical of the previous government’s approach to disabled people, and has argued against taking a ‘salami-slicing’ approach to benefits reform. But bringing back the previous government’s plans suggests that despite the rhetoric, this government is taking the same old failed approach of prioritising short-term cuts over meaningful reform.
Ms Anwar added: “The government should abandon these cruel and poorly thought-out plans. And when it comes to consulting on hugely important changes to the benefits system, this government must not repeat the mistakes of the previous one. We need to see a genuine consultation that gives disabled people a proper chance to respond to plans which could see them plunged into deep poverty.”
Last week, the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, Liz Kendall said the welfare budget has to be put on a “more sustainable course” as she warned the country could not keep meeting the “costs of failure”.
Ms Kendall said more people needed to be moved off welfare and into jobs and blamed the Conservative administrations for failing to control welfare spending.
She told the PA news agency: “We’re going to get the benefits bill on a more sustainable course – and it has to be, we cannot accept these costs of failure, failure for individuals, failure for businesses and failure for the economy.
“But the way to do this is to get more people into work through the reforms that we’re putting in place in our Jobcentres and through reform of the benefit system. And we’ll be bringing forward our Green Paper on reforming sickness and disability benefits in the Spring.”
The £137.4 billion welfare cap set by the previous government for 2024/25 is on course to be exceeded by £8.6 billion.
The Work and Pensions Secretary told PA: “This is our inheritance from the Conservative government. And the Tories failed on welfare because they failed on work.
“We have got almost record numbers of people out of work due to long-term health problems. That’s terrible for them. It’s terrible for their living standards. It’s terrible for employers who want to recruit and it’s terrible for the public finances.
“So we need big reforms in the way that we work to get more people into those jobs, which will help bring the benefits bill onto a more sustainable footing.”
In her major economic growth speech on January 29, Chancellor Rachel Reeves promised “fundamental reform of our welfare system” including “looking at areas that have been ducked for too long like the rising cost of health and disability benefits”.