The Times reports as many as a million people face having their benefits reduced under an overhaul of the welfare system.
Full details of a brutal £5 billion Department for Work and Pensions ( DWP ) disability benefits cuts plan has emerged. The Times reports as many as a million people face having their benefits reduced under an overhaul of the welfare system.
It means only the most severely disabled will qualify. The shake-up includes abolishing the “work capability assessment” for incapacity benefits and making the long-term sick prepare for work, the newspaper has reported overnight.
Liz Kendall, the work and pensions secretary, is expected to cut the top rate of incapacity benefit, which at present means those deemed unfit for any work are paid more than £800 a month, twice as much as jobseekers.
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Some of the savings will be spent on raising the basic rate of universal credit and a £1 billion package of employment support. Cuts to personal independence payments (PIP) will “account for the bulk of the savings”, the broadsheet continued.
Other changes include a shake-up to the PIP points system, meaning people face having to score more points to qualify for the handout. James Taylor of the charity Scope said: “Tightening the assessment would be a disastrous move and result in hundreds of thousands more disabled people being pushed into poverty.
“We are yet to see evidence that mental health conditions come with lower extra costs, and therefore this proposal could be deeply damaging.” The changes come from the DWP amid a ballooning benefits bill.
But Taylor warned: “If the government takes this forward it would plunge hundreds of thousands into poverty and have a devastating effect on disabled people’s health, ability to live independently or work.”
Labour MPs, similarly, have voiced their dissent – with John McDonnell, an Independent MP who lost the Labour whip previously, writing an op-ed in the Guardian today (March 15, Saturday).
In a statement, Tom Pollard of the New Economics Foundation think tank said: “There has been concern within government that the rise in the PIP caseload is being driven in part by more people claiming for less severe mental health problems and neurodevelopmental conditions like autism and ADHD.
“It therefore seems likely that any changes to the assessment criteria to reduce the number of new claims would target this group.”