Nicola Green, 42, speaks out after significant legal victory against department that accused her of fraud
The mother of a teenager with cerebral palsy has demanded an end to the “sickening harassment” of unpaid carers after a significant legal victory against the government.
Nicola Green, 42, was pursued by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) for more than a year after she was accused of fraudulently claiming nearly £3,000 in carer’s allowance.
Continue reading...People who rely on personal independence payments tell how cuts will affect them as chancellor rules out U-turn
Ministers are facing a backlash over planned disability welfare changes, but Rachel Reeves on Thursday resisted calls to abandon the cuts.
After ruling out a U-turn, pressure is building on the UK chancellor to tweak qualification rules to protect many disabled people from being stripped of their benefits. On Thursday, she said the government was “reviewing the criteria”, but ministers are yet to release details.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Liz Kendall pledges sick and disabled people will be protected but MPs are pushing for more substantial changes to bill
Ministers are to offer mutinous Labour MPs an olive branch on the government’s welfare plans to help avert a major rebellion in a crucial vote early next month.
Liz Kendall, the welfare secretary, wants to reassure angry MPs who have threatened to rebel over fears that sick and disabled people will be hardest hit.
Continue reading...Treasury says move to restore the funding for most pensioners will cost around £1.25bn
The Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats are both trying to take credit for the winter fuel payments U-turn by the government.
This is from Kemi Badenoch, the Tory leader.
Keir Starmer has scrambled to clear up a mess of his own making. I repeatedly challenged him to reverse his callous decision to withdraw winter fuel payments, and every time Starmer arrogantly dismissed my criticisms.
This humiliating U-turn will come as scant comfort to the pensioners forced to choose between heating and eating last winter. The prime minister should now apologise for his terrible judgement.
Finally the chancellor has listened to the Liberal Democrats and the tireless campaigners in realising how disastrous this policy was, but the misery it has caused cannot be overstated.
Countless pensioners were forced to choose between heating and eating all whilst the government buried its head in the sand for months on end, ignoring those who were really suffering.
Continue reading...Prime minister to launch strategic defence review in Glasgow this morning
Here is the clip of Keir Starmer in his Today programme interview refusing to say when the government will raise defence spending to 3% of GDP.
In an interview with the Times published on Saturday John Healey, the defence secretary, said that he had “no doubt” that Britain would reach the 3% target by 2034 – ie, before the end of the next parliament. Yesterday he described this as an “ambition”.
Continue reading...Reform UK leader unveils plans to reverse benefit cuts and bring in tax breaks without explaining how they would be funded
Nigel Farage has been accused of leaving a multibillion-pound black hole at the heart of his party’s spending plans after unveiling a series of expensive policy pledges to be paid for by cutting nonexistent items of government spending.
The Reform UK leader laid out a series of economic promises at a speech on Tuesday designed to take advantage of disquiet among Labour voters at the government’s policies on taxes and benefits.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Flagship policy put back until at least autumn amid fears cost of removing two-child benefit cap will outweigh political benefit
Labour’s flagship child poverty strategy has been delayed until at least the autumn, the Guardian has learned, even though tens of thousands more children will fall into poverty as a result.
The decision to push back the strategy comes amid Treasury concerns about the cost implications of ending the two-child limit on universal credit and questions inside No 10 over the political benefits of scrapping it.
Continue reading...Downing Street unable to say how many more pensioners would receive winter fuel payments or when changes would come in
YouGov has published more details of its polling on the electorate’s relationship with Labour, as covered in the Sky News report mentioned earlier. (See 10.06am.)
It shows that Reform UK supporters are most likely to think that Labour is trying hard to appeal to them – but least likely to say they would respond positively. Only 4% of Reform UK supporters say they would consider voting Labour, the poll says.
I ask her if there will be any changes as demanded by MPs
She says while “we want to make sure we address all of people’s concerns, but stressed: “whatever the fiscal position that the government faces, I think the system as a whole needs to change.”
Downing Street unable to say how many more pensioners would receive winter fuel payments or when changes would come in
YouGov has published more details of its polling on the electorate’s relationship with Labour, as covered in the Sky News report mentioned earlier. (See 10.06am.)
It shows that Reform UK supporters are most likely to think that Labour is trying hard to appeal to them – but least likely to say they would respond positively. Only 4% of Reform UK supporters say they would consider voting Labour, the poll says.
I ask her if there will be any changes as demanded by MPs
She says while “we want to make sure we address all of people’s concerns, but stressed: “whatever the fiscal position that the government faces, I think the system as a whole needs to change.”
Exclusive: Survey commissioned by children’s charities shows UK voters want to see families prioritised
Charities and a Labour-aligned pressure group are ramping up calls on Keir Starmer to scrap the two-child limit on benefits, as polling shows support for action on youth poverty remains high, and is equally solid among Labour voters tempted by Reform.
As discussions continue in government ahead of the forthcoming child poverty strategy, a survey commissioned by a coalition of charities suggests voters want to see families prioritised.
Continue reading...Keir Starmer did not deny a rethink of benefit cut to 10 million pensioners blamed for Labour’s electoral losses
Downing Street is actively investigating changes to the controversial winter fuel payment cut over growing concerns about the policy’s deep unpopularity among voters.
No 10 has stepped up its work on reviewing the policy by carrying out internal polling and focus groups on how voters would respond to potential modifications to it.
Continue reading...Commons committee recommends independent scrutiny of failures and legal duty to safeguard those at most risk
A cross-party committee of MPs has called for greater protections for vulnerable benefit claimants after hundreds of cases of deaths and serious harms linked to safeguarding failures by welfare officials.
The work and pensions select committee said many of these cases, which include instances where claimants took their own lives, could have been prevented had the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) discharged its responsibilities effectively.
Continue reading...Work and pensions secretary calls for groups to engage as she scraps capability assessment and overhauls Pip application
Liz Kendall is to begin an overhaul of the disability benefit assessment process long decried by campaigners as cruel, calling on groups to engage with the changes amid criticism of the government’s forthcoming welfare cuts.
The work and pensions secretary said on Monday she was beginning the process of abolishing the work capability assessment and overhauling the process to apply for the personal independence payment (Pip) – which can be paid to those in or out of work – to form a single assessment process.
Continue reading...Polling finds two-thirds of voters would back a rethink on the policy and would not see it as a sign of weakness
Downing Street has been accused of being “completely tone deaf” over the damage wreaked by winter fuel cuts as new polling suggested two-thirds of voters would back a rethink on the policy.
Senior Labour ministers have privately warned the policy is an electoral disaster while Eluned Morgan, the Welsh first minister, said she was “losing patience” with UK Labour as she urged the government to think again.
Continue reading...In today’s newsletter: Can a partial U-turn on the winter fuel allowance help the party set a new agenda – and keep support for Nigel Farage at bay?
Good morning. After Reform UK’s resounding success in last week’s local elections, Keir Starmer has faced relentless questions over how Labour will change tack to deal with the problem. Now, we may have the beginning of an answer.
On the front page of today’s Guardian, Pippa Crerar and Jessica Elgot report that Downing Street is seriously rethinking the cuts to the winter fuel payment – the policy that above all others summarised Starmer and Rachel Reeves’s shaky start to life in government. While a full reversal is not on the cards, No 10 sources say that the £11,500 threshold over which pensioners are no longer eligible for the allowance could be increased in the autumn.
Israel-Gaza war | Israel is to expand its military operations in Gaza in the coming weeks, with the aim of “conquering” and establishing a “sustained presence” in the Palestinian territory, Israeli officials have said.
Film | Donald Trump’s threat to impose 100% tariffs on movies made outside the US could wipe out the UK film industry, ministers have been warned, as they came under immediate pressure to prioritise the issue in trade talks with the White House.
Charities | Macmillan Cancer Support is to scrap its £14m-a-year specialist advice service, which helps tens of thousands of people every year, in what has been described as a betrayal of vulnerable patients. With the charity’s income falling behind its expenditure, it said that the service was no longer sustainable.
Wildfires | After the warmest start to May on record, a wildfire has destroyed about 5,000 hectares (12,500 acres) of moorland on Dartmoor in Devon. Emergency services were called to the blaze at about 2.25pm on Sunday, and firefighters spent almost 24 hours at the scene before it was extinguished on Monday.
VE Day | The UK marked the 80th anniversary of VE Day with military pomp before large crowds who had gathered in central London. The royal family and war veterans were among the attendees at a 1,300-strong military procession while street parties were held around the UK.
Continue reading...Policy in Practice analysis shows twice as many people affected in north-east, north-west and Wales than in London and south-east
A £5bn programme of disability benefits cuts planned by the UK government will disproportionately hit people living in Wales and northern England “entrenching deprivation”, according to new analysis.
The consultancy Policy in Practice has looked at how the proposed changes would affect individual regions and local authorities, and found the impact across the UK starkly uneven.
Continue reading...PM told to be as robust as Canada with the US president as the UK stages last-ditch talks to strike trade deal
Keir Starmer should fight back strongly against Donald Trump if he imposes punitive tariffs on British exports, senior UK and EU diplomats said on Saturday night, amid heightened fears that the US president could trigger a global trade war with devastating effects on the UK economy.
British government officials in London and Washington are working frantically this weekend to try to persuade Trump not to slap duties on more key UK industries on what he is calling “liberation day” on Wednesday. The US president has already announced plans for 25% levies on imports of cars, steel and aluminium to the US.
Continue reading...Department for Work and Pensions says thousands, including children, will be hit by chancellor’s announcement, as OBR forecasts UK growth to halve in 2025
Rachel Reeves will not be raising taxes in the spring statement today, even though there are many people on the left who would prefer taxes to rise as an alternative to public spending being cut. Reeves came into office promising only one budget-type event a year, and that is one reason why she is not hiking taxes today. But mainly it’s because she thinks Britons are relatively highly taxed already, because Labour was elected on a manifesto ruling out most of the obvious possible tax rises and because she’s not convinced a sweeping wealth tax would work.
But that has not stopped campaigners calling for a wealth tax, and yesterday about 300 people attended a ‘Tax the Super-Rich’ rally outside the Treasury. It was organised by charities and social justice campaign groups, but one of the speakers was Carla Denyer, co-leader of the Green party, which is in favour of a wealth tax.
Across the country, inequality is soaring and people are being left behind, struggling to make ends meet and dealing with broken public services, all while the very richest get richer. Choosing to make cut after cut to the poorest and most marginalised, while leaving the vast resource of the extreme wealth of the super rich untouched, is immoral, harmful, and will not deliver for our communities or the economy.
Continue reading...Families forecast to lose an average of £1,720 a year, according to official government analysis
More than 3 million people will lose out as a result of the government’s sweeping cuts to welfare, according to the official government analysis, with families losing an average of £1,720 a year.
The official assessment of the impact of the benefits cuts – including a sharper-than-expected cut to universal credit payments – shows those eligible for disability payments will be hit the hardest.
Continue reading...Understanding the rightwing backlash over the government scheme helping people with serious disabilities get cars
Motability really ought to be a boring subject: a government scheme helping people with serious disabilities get a car by using a portion of their benefits to pay for the lease. But over the past week, anyone who had never heard of Motability would have got a more lurid impression.
First reported in the Daily Mail, and then in a string of follow-up stories, Motability was portrayed not as a useful mechanism for helping people with disabilities but an outrageous example of con artists milking the taxpayer.
Continue reading...