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Labour rebellion over welfare cuts soars as one DWP minister just WELCOMED the Tories’ support

Amid the growing Labour MP rebellion, Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) minister Stephen Timms has welcomed support from the Conservative Party to ram the callous welfare cuts bill through its imminent second reading.

DWP welfare cuts bill: minister for disabled people doubling down

On the morning of Wednesday 25 June, the Work and Pensions committee grilled the Minister of State for Social Security and Disability over the cruel benefit cuts bill. The government is due to bring the bill before parliament on Tuesday 1 July.

Timms was talking out of his arse with all the usual myths on Personal Independence Payment (PIP) and Universal Credit’s Limited Capability for Work Related Activity (LCWRA).

Chair Debbie Abrahams quickly pressed Timms on why the government hadn’t consulted disabled people over the bill.

Naturally, he doubled down with the department’s drivel on the unsustainable trajectory of benefits.

However, Abrahams immediately debunked this, noting that:

In terms of working age support, spending has remained at 5% GDP for the past ten plus years.

Abrahams explained that while spending for disability benefits has increased, overall, the cost of working age benefits had stayed broadly the same for over a decade. Moreover, she pointed out there were clear and valid reasons for the increase in disability benefit spending too: 

The DWP’s own papers have shown the increase for example PIP cases, has been as a result of demographic changes, or poor health, also the increase in state pension age.

Additionally, she highlighted that more are likely claiming PIP because they’re “financially constrained” due to the soaring cost of living.  She rightly linked how PIP is also meant to be there to help disabled people meet the extra costs of living they incur. As the Canary has repeatedly underscored, chronically ill and disabled people experience higher costs – more than £1,000 – across multiple layers of their daily lives.

Myths on mental health from DWP – again

Unsurprisingly, Timms also peddled the preposterous, and entirely unsupported notion that work is good for people’s mental health.

Mercifully, Abrahams called him out on this too. She pointed to similar previous reforms-come-real-terms-cuts the Tories had implemented in the 2010s. Notably, she highlighted soaring welfare-cut-related-suicides and the climb in mental health cases as the Tories stripped claimants of their Employment Support Allowance. Specifically, she underscored that with the disability employment gap “flatlining”, the cuts simply led to deepening poverty with devastatingly fatal consequences:

as I say 600 additional suicides during the reforms for 2010, 130,000 additional new onset mental health cases, without that [available jobs] for the 2017 changes to work-related activity component

So predictably, far from helping chronically ill and disabled people’s mental health, the cuts will only entrench and exacerbate them. The government has been equating people’s self-worth with work. Through a ‘productive’ capitalist lens, it has sought to carve up claimants demographics as ‘deserving’ or ‘undeserving’. If anything, it’s this very othering and scapegoating by the DWP of the many disabled people who can’t work that has been damaging their mental health.

Hell-bent on the brutal benefits cut bill

Eventually, it was Conservative MP Peter Bedford that pressed him on “the elephant in the room”. That is, the growing Labour rebellion that could halt the government’s bill in its tracks.

On Tuesday, Labour MPs launched a major rebellion against the government’s plans. Five Labour MPs who chair various committees, tabled an amendment that would kill the welfare bill. This included:

  • Treasury Committee chair Dame Meg Hillier.
  • Work and Pensions Committee Chair Debbie Abrahams.
  • Education Committee chair Helen Hayes.
  • Women and Equalities Committee chair Sarah Owen.
  • Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee chair Florence Eshalomi.

Signees also included Labour MP Vicky Foxcroft, who last week resigned as a government whip over the disability welfare plans. Labour’s mayor of London Sadiq Khan has also thrown his support behind efforts to stop the bill.

The amendment points out that the government hasn’t held a formal consultation with disabled people or their carers. It also highlights that the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) has yet to publish its analysis on the “employment impact” of its other reforms. This isn’t due until the autumn of 2025. On top of this, it underscored how:

the majority of the additional employment support funding will not be in place until the end of the decade.

Moreover, it noted that:

the Government is still awaiting the findings of the Minister for Social Security and Disability’s review into the assessment for Personal Independence Payment and Sir Charlie Mayfield’s independent review into the role of employers and government in boosting the employment of disabled people and people with long-term health conditions.

Growing in number despite Starmer’s threats

108 Labour MPs had signed the amendment by the time the group tabled it. However, the number continued to climb.

Currently, the figure is 162 MPs, including more than 120 Labour backbenchers:

Keir Starmer had deployed Cabinet members to ring round MPs to stem the growing rebellion. The government had purportedly threatened to blacklist MPs for ministerial roles if they fail to support the bill. And of course, behind the scenes architect of the cuts, Keir Starmer’s chief of staff Morgan McSweeney has been all over it. He has been in “one-on-one talks” with senior rebels.

However, the bullying tactic has ultimately backfired – as MPs have so far stood their ground, while new names continue to join the list.

Turning to the Tories says it all

On Tuesday, Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch stepped in to salvage Starmer’s bill. As the Independent reported:

Capitalising on the political chaos for the government, Ms Badenoch has appeared to have calculated that it would be more humiliating for the prime minister to need her to pass an essential bill.

Now, Timms has all but confirmed that this is precisely what the government will likely now do.

Tory MP Danny Kruger put to Timms at the committee session:

At the moment, you don’t have a majority to get it through the House of Commons unless the Conservatives support the Bill. Would you like us to, and will you press ahead if you can only do it with Conservatives?

Barely skipping a beat, Timms replied:

I’d be delighted to have support from across the entire House for the excellent proposals that we’re bringing forward, and I’m looking forward to the debate on Tuesday.

So, there you have it. Starmer’s government is willing to get into bed with the the Tories over its benefit cuts bill. Not only that, they’re “delighted’ about it(!)

PMQs: when wet wipe Mel Stride makes sense, you know it has all gone to shit

And if you needed any further proof of the depths of red Tory Labour is willing to plumb, eat your heart over this shit-flinging parliamentary exchange between previous DWP boss Mel Stride and deputy PM Angela Rayner at PMQs:

Notably though, Stride asked why Rayner felt she was right, and more than 120 Labour MPs were wrong. That the former DWP wet wipe had a point should be a major source of embarrassment for the government. Of course, Rayner and the front bench showed no shame over its increasingly untenable position on the bill.

She once more confirmed that the government will be ploughing ahead with it on Tuesday. Starmer then echoed this from a press conference at the NATO summit, with more galling bullshit about the benefits “trap”:

On the question of welfare reform, we’re committed to reforming our welfare system. It doesn’t work. It traps people, and it has to be reformed, and it also has to ensure that we’ve got a welfare system that is fit for the future. And that is why there will be a vote.

But when his government can’t even rally enough support from its own MPs – with a stonking 156-seat majority – that’s telling.

Concessions? More sleights of hand to drive the bill through

Starmer is now said to be considering ‘concessions’ in a bid to win over the rebel MPs. This purportedly includes the possibility of watering down the PIP eligibility element. There are suggestions this could involve dropping down the new four-point eligibility requirement, to three points. However, as many have already started pointing out, this is a deceptive and pitiful change. Huge numbers of PIP claimants will still lose out:

Notably, there’s currently only one PIP descriptor – washing and bathing – in which applicants can score three points:

Of course, even if the government drop the four-point policy for PIP entirely – which is unlikely – many of the dangerous aspects of the bill, in particular around LCWRA, would still remain.

Nonetheless, DWP minister Timm’s comment at the committee session show how Starmer’s sycophantic cabinet is perfectly happy to shamelessly suck up to the Tories to get this disgusting bill through parliament.

It has been clear for a long time now that there isn’t a fag paper between this sham Labour government and the Conservatives. Now, the Labour right and the Tories’ vitriolic fervour for killing poor, chronically ill, and disabled people has brought this hellish austerity death-cult in step. Next week, that can mean nothing good for 16.1 million chronically ill and disabled people across the UK.

Featured image via the Canary

By Hannah Sharland

This post was originally published on Canary.