DWP shame for Keir Starmer as a Labour MP exposed him over cuts to Universal Credit

Prime Minister Keir Starmer was humiliated by one of his own MPs, Debbie Abrahams, over his planned cuts to Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) benefits for chronically ill and disabled people. Specifically, it surround the issues of not only the now-abandoned changes to Personal Independence Payment (PIP), but also cuts to the Universal Credit health element.

DWP and Labour: striking ‘fear’ into disabled people

Starmer was in front of the Liaison Committee being grilled on numerous topics. One of them was the DWP. Labour MP Debbie Abrahams is a longstanding and vocal supporter if chronically ill and disabled people. She has also been fiercely critical of the DWP. Abrahams sits on the Liaison Committee and was grilling Starmer about his cuts to people’s benefits.

She firstly asked:

Since you were last before us, my Committee [the Work and Pensions Select Committee] published our interim findings from the “Pathways to Work” inquiry in May, in which we expressed our considerable concerns about the imminent UC and PIP legislation, and particularly about the change to eligibility for those benefits, which has the potential to push 250,000 disabled people into poverty.

I acknowledge the concessions that the Government made in the Bill, but the fear and anxiety that it caused to disabled people currently in the system cannot be overestimated. I just wonder what you would like to say to them now. What will you be doing differently in the future?

Fear and anxiety is putting it mildly. Coupled with the passing of the Assisted Suicide Bill, many chronically ill and disabled people rightly feel that the Labour government wants them dead. As the Canary’s Hannah Sharland recently summed up:

When it comes down to it, the government either wants chronically ill and disabled people working, or it wants us dead.

Not that Starmer cares to acknowledge this – as if he did, it would be an admission of guilt. So, he told Abrahams that:

Well, it is very important that they feel secure and supported. That is at the heart of what we are doing with the changes we are making to welfare and related areas. I want to see more opportunities and more support put in place…

What are you going to do about it?

But Abrahams wasn’t having it. She came back with:

On that very point, you will be aware that your Government still estimate that 50,000 newly disabled people, in April next year, will be pushed into poverty because of the reduction in the UC health element of the Bill… what are we going to do to mitigate the potential pushing of another 50,000 newly disabled people and their families into poverty?

Many organisations have disputed the 50,000 DWP figure – saying it will be higher. Regardless, Starmer was obtuse once again, saying:

Some changes take years, but not all, and we have to do work in the interim to give support to those with disabilities…

Abrahams interrupted, asking him what exactly. Starmer bounced it back, saying that these chronically ill and disabled people will be supported to find work. Like a broken record, the Canary needs to say yet again that far too many of the people affected by the cut to the DWP Universal Credit health element will not be able to work. However, again, Starmer and his government do not care.

Then, Abrahams perhaps summed up what many others are feeling – not least the 40-odd Labour MPs who rebelled against the government (and the four Starmer has now booted out of the Parliamentary Labour Party):

This was poor legislation. It was designed to save money for the Treasury by cutting support to sick and disabled people. It was so far removed from Labour values of fairness and social justice, let alone compassion and common decency, that I have to say I felt ashamed. What are the values that will underpin the Government’s policymaking going forward, so that we avoid the potential and real harms that disabled and vulnerable people are going to face?

Cold comfort – and cold words

Like the cynical wretch that he is, Starmer then said:

I think this is a really important Labour value. I think the fact that there are nearly a million young people out of work, not earning or learning, is a huge challenge for our country, and none of us should accept a system that operates like that. It is broken and needs to be mended. All the evidence is that if you are on benefits and out of work at that young age, the likelihood of ever getting into good, well-paid, secure employment goes down for the rest of your life.

One in 10 working age people is out of work, and 3 million are locked out for health-related reasons. It is no wonder that almost everybody says the system is broken and has to be changed. I am glad that we have started the process of change. I am not going to pretend that we got everything right in recent weeks, but we do need to reform the system. We should take that on as a Labour argument, in my view.

There are plenty of things Starmer could do to ‘reform’ the system in terms of what directly and indirectly affects how the welfare state like the DWP operates – and whether people’s health and wellbeing are such that they can physically work:

• Address the mental health crisis that has swept the country.
• Improve social housing and stop profiteering private landlords.
• Make the NHS truly accessible and satisfactory for chronically ill and disabled people.
• Not churn out half-baked guff like the ME Delivery Plan.
• Ensure that employers are forced to pay an actual Living Wage.
• End precarious and soul-destroying work.
• Scrap the DWP and replace it with a Department for Social Security that is not obsessed with policing, punishing, and in too many cases killing off chronically ill, disabled, and non-working people.
• Raise benefits to a level where they provide those people with support to properly live.
• And the list could go on.

DWP: Starmer betrayed himself

But Starmer will do none of these things. Instead, he has been, and will continue to, go down the decades-old route of painting people who cannot work as layabouts, scroungers, and DWP fraudsters – and attempt to either coerce them into work when they shouldn’t be working, or kill them off altogether.

Abrahams did a good job of holding the PM to account – as far as a serving Labour MP could. His answers betrayed him as a politician who does not care about the effect his policies have on people’s lives, which does not bode well for the future.

Featured image via the Canary