Tensions grow over UK government plan to cut welfare payments

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Tensions within the Labour party over welfare cuts were growing on Monday as work and pensions secretary Liz Kendall prepared to unveil plans to slash government spending on health-related benefits.

Dozens of Labour MPs have expressed concerns about withdrawing or cutting support for those in need, and several ministers raised concerns with Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer at last week’s cabinet meeting.

Andy Burnham, mayor of Greater Manchester, said he was concerned about changing support and eligibility to benefits, saying “it would trap too many people in poverty”.

“There is no case in any scenario for cutting the support available to disabled people who are unable to work,” he wrote in the Times.

Veteran Labour MP Diane Abbott said on Monday that “cutting the money for disabled people is not a Labour thing to do”. “When people say that being on benefits is a lifestyle choice, do they know the sort of housing those people are in . . . and how humiliating it can be,” she said.

Health secretary Wes Streeting said on Sunday the UK was “overdiagnosing” mental health conditions as he prepared the ground for reforms expected to slash support for people with psychiatric problems.

Streeting told the BBC: “Mental wellbeing, illness, it’s a spectrum and I think definitely there’s an overdiagnosis but there’s [also] too many people being written off.”

Downing Street held a series of briefings with Labour MPs last week to try to quell concern and frustration about the cuts, due to be announced on Tuesday, but many members are still deeply uncomfortable.

The government had been expected to freeze the level of disability benefits, referred to as Personal Independence Payments, so that they did not rise in line with inflation.

But the government backed away from the move over the weekend. Louise Murphy, of the Resolution Foundation, said that a multiyear freeze in PIP rates would have saved £600mn in 2026-7, rising to £3.3bn by 2029-30 as the caseload of claimants increased.

Kendall is also expected slash the highest level of incapacity support — which provides an additional £416 per month — while increasing the basic rate of support for people who are out of work, known as universal credit, according to people briefed on the move.

Experts have long argued that the low level of unemployment benefit has driven more people with underlying health conditions to claim for additional incapacity and disability benefits, because it is difficult to live on for any length of time.

However, narrowing the gap in a cost-neutral way would mean big cuts to support for disabled and sick people, in order to boost payments to the larger number on the basic rate.

Much bigger savings could be achieved by restricting eligibility for PIPs, a move that is expected to feature in Kendall’s plan. People claiming disability support for mental health conditions are likely to be most affected.

Payments are expected to be denied to about 1mn people, including those with mental health conditions and those who struggle with washing, eating and dressing themselves. People in need of a hearing aid are also expected to fall below the new threshold and could lose out on payments.