You don’t even need to lend an ear to those disability charities such as Scope, who stated ‘the concessions put forward by Government will just create a two-tier system, where huge numbers of disabled people face the disability price tag with little or no support.’
No, all you need to do is listen to the words of Keir Starmer and his own ministers to understand why his proposals represent the most cack-handed, immoral, incompetent, self-defeating, politically myopic and fiscally incoherent piece of welfare legislation to be put before the country in living memory.
Let’s start with Sir Keir himself. By his own admission, he hadn’t even be bothered to give the Bill – supposedly the most significant benefit’s reform for a generation – proper attention until six days ago. ‘I turned my attention fully to it when I got back from Nato on Wednesday night’, he revealed on Sunday, ‘my full attention really bore down on this on Thursday. At that point we were able to move relatively quickly.’
To be fair, he did. He rapidly took a series of measures that were already inept, ill-thought out and utterly self-defeating, and made them totally unfit for purpose.
Liz Kendall’s legislation is crystal clear, says Dan Hodges. Every single person currently scamming the system via Personal Independence Payments (PIP) will continue to receive them
Let’s recall what this Bill was actually supposed to accomplish. And again, let’s take as our point of reference not one of its critics, but its chief architect. At the start of the year, Liz Kendall was clear. A significant number of people on benefits were ‘taking the Mickey’, she conceded. Since Covid, the number of people who could work, but were not, had soared. ‘That is not good enough. We have to end that,’ she insisted.
But now, by her own admission, she has no intention of ending it. Her legislation is crystal clear. Every single person currently scamming the system via Personal Independence Payments (PIP) – those who are in her words ‘taking the Mickey’ – will continue to receive them. Under her Bill, those who defraud the system, effectively stealing from both the taxpayer and those in genuine need – will be given official licence to continue to do so.
According Kendall, ‘there are now 1,000 new PIP awards every single day. That’s the equivalent of adding a city the size of Leicester every single year.’ But she is literally saying to every one of the bogus claimants she has herself identified, ‘keep filling your boots’.
Meanwhile, what will the proposals mean for genuine claimants? Again, let’s not listen to those opposing the Government’s legislation, but the Government itself.
Earlier in the year, the Department of Work and Pensions revealed the proposed measures would force 250,000 into poverty, including 50,000 children. That was a figure that was obviously unacceptable to Ministers, so officials were sent away to come up with a new one.
Yesterday they published it. According to the Government, as a result of its own welfare proposals, up to 150,000 people will be pushed into poverty.
By his own admission, Sir Keir hadn’t even be bothered to give the Bill – supposedly the most significant benefit’s reform for a generation – proper attention until six days ago, writes Hodges
To what end? At the beginning of this process ministers claimed £5billion would be trimmed off the spiralling welfare bill. But according to an analysis published last week by the Resolution Foundation, the government’s U-turn would eradicate £3billion of those savings.
Then there is the £1.5billion that now has to be found following the U-turn on winter fuel. And in yesterday’s statement, Liz Kendall announced an additional £300million of employment support for the sick and disabled.
Virtually every penny of Kendall’s £5billion ‘saving’ has now vanished. So how will that ‘black hole’ be filled?
Here we don’t need to look at what Ministers are saying, but what they’re not saying. Liz Kendall was asked how these collective U-turns would be funded. She refused to answer. MPs would be told ‘at the next fiscal event’.
So this is where we are this morning. Labour MPs are being ordered to march through the lobbies to support legislation even the Prime Minister himself has admitted didn’t receive proper attention till less than a week ago. Legislation the Welfare Secretary has herself conceded will allow significant numbers of people to continue to ‘take the Mickey’ out of the British tax-payer, and the welfare system. Legislation, that by the Government’s own analysis, will force 150,000 people into poverty. Legislation that Ministers openly concede hasn’t even been costed, and that independent analysts confirm will leave the Treasury staring at an additional £5billion hole in the public finances.
If those MPs bow to their whips this evening, they will not be forgiven. And it will not be long before they realise first hand what life out of work is really like.
