'Cruel restrictions' - South Tyneside MPs urge protection of disability payments
‘Making someone ineligible for welfare does not make their disability or financial challenges disappear.’
Both of South Tyneside’s MPs have written to the Prime Minister asking for protection for disabled people’s living standards.
Jarrow’s Kate Osborne and Emma Lewell for South Shields are among 24 Labour MPs to sign the letter, urging Andy Burnham not to restrict access to Personal Independence Payment (PIP), which helps working-aged people with a health condition or a disability with the extra costs of living.
The letter, written by Neil Duncan-Jordan MP, also slams any recommendation to limit access to PIP for the under-22s, while saying the decision in 2025 to cut Universal Credit (UC) Health by 50% for new applicants is “deeply concerning”.
Of UC claimants in the North East, 48% are on UC Health, the highest proportion in England and in August Reform UK have claimed they would cut benefits by £50bn.
The letter tells Mr Burnham: “Your welcome cost-of-living measures and commitment to fixing our broken social care system should form part of a renews Labour commitment to the safety net that working people campaigned for over generations to build.
“We should move away from cruel, unevidenced restrictions on eligibility or poverty-inducing cuts and carve-outs to reject Nigel Farage’s politics of division and suspicion.
“Making someone ineligible for welfare does not make their disability or financial challenges disappear.”
Motability is also an issue, with the letter adding: “In contrast to the outlandish claims levelled against Motability by sections of the media, it is not an additional benefit or an undeserved perk.
“It allows people who receive the mobility component of PIP to use that entitlement to lease a vehicle suite to their needs.”
The comments are in response to the review by the minister for social security and disability Stephen Timms, which aims was to make PIP “fair and fit for the future”.
However, the government will spend £353bn on welfare benefits this year, although almost half is on the state pension. Reform wants to combine PIP and part of Universal Credit Health support into a flat-rate “health security allowance” of £429.80 a month – for those with the most severe disabilities.
The party’s Treasury spokesman, Robert Jenrick, has robustly defended Reform’s proposed cuts.
He said: “The British taxpayer is acting as the welfare state for the world.”