Pat McFadden insists welfare reform change vote will go ahead as planned but says party will ‘engage with’ rebels
Frances Ryan reports for the Guardian:
Downing Street’s disability cuts will have a “devastating” impact on women’s health and dignity and could breach equality law, the government has been warned.
Continue reading...Amendment intended to kill off legislation that would cut benefits could be backed by up to 100 Labour MPs including senior figures
Labour MPs have launched a significant rebellion against the government’s benefit cuts with an amendment that could kill its welfare bill, spearheaded by senior select committee chairs.
The amendment – which sources said could be signed by up to 100 MPs – declines to pass the government’s welfare changes and calls for a pause, including for further consultation and for support to be in place before any further cuts are made.
Continue reading...Sources say party should have focused on the moral case for reforming the benefits system
Government officials have admitted they made a mistake by making the financial case for cutting benefits as they steel themselves for as many as 50 Labour MPs rebelling against the welfare bill that is being published on Wednesday.
Sources told the Guardian that they now believed the party should have focused on the moral case for reforming the welfare system, arguing that it was letting down millions of people who could be supported into work.
Continue reading...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...Leader says policy ‘not aimed at those who come into the country and suddenly decide to have a lot of children’
The co-leader of the Green party of England and Wales, Adrian Ramsay, has renewed his call for Russia to face greater sanctions. Posting to social media, the MP for Waveney Valley said “Putin has stepped up attacks on Ukrainian civilians because he thinks he’ll face no consequences. Much tougher sanctions are urgently needed to bring him into serious peace talks to end this horrific war.”
As well as appearing on the media round today, shadow chancellor Mel Stride has written for the Daily Mail, saying that the Conservatives continue to back the two-child benefit cap.
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.”
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...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...Keir Starmer has been dealt a fresh blow to his living standards pledge in advance of the spring statement
Living standards for all UK families are set to fall by 2030, with those on the lowest incomes declining twice as fast as middle and high earners, according to new data that raises serious questions about Keir Starmer’s pledge to make working people better off.
The grim economic analysis, produced by the respected Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF), comes before the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, makes her spring statement on Wednesday in which she will announce new cuts to public spending rather than increase borrowing or raise taxes, so as to keep within the government’s “iron clad” fiscal rules.
Continue reading...