Rachel Reeves faces call from her local Labour party to abandon welfare cuts
Rachel Reeves’s local Labour party will demand that the Chancellor abandons her plans to cut disability benefits.
The Leeds West and Pudsey Constituency Labour Party (CLP), which campaigned to return Ms Reeves to Parliament in the general election as its local MP, has agreed to write to her “as soon as possible” to make clear it does not support the cuts.
The local party branch passed a motion opposing the cuts, seen by the PA news agency, when it met this week.
Plans
The Government’s plans, set out in a Green Paper earlier this year, would tighten the eligibility criteria for the main disability benefit in England, the personal independence payment (Pip).
Restricting Pip would cut benefits for around 800,000 people, while the sickness-related element of universal credit also set to be cut.
The package of measures are aimed at reducing the number of working-age people on sickness benefits, which grew during the pandemic and has remained high since.
The Government hopes the proposals can save £5 billion a year by the end of the decade.
In its motion opposing the plans, the Leeds West and Pudsey CLP said disabled people “are not responsible for the state of the national finances and should not be made to pay the price for Tory economic mismanagement”.
The CLP also acknowledged welfare reform is important, but urged the Government to “focus on reducing the taper” – the rate at which benefits fall off once someone has found work.
Opposition
The local Labour group resolved to write to both Chancellor Ms Reeves and Work and Pensions Secretary Liz Kendall to “articulate our proposed cuts to disability benefits – whether by reducing rates, implementing higher thresholds, poor quality assessments or increased conditionality – as soon as possible”.
Opposition on Ms Reeves’s patch comes as the Government appears at risk of a major rebellion from its backbenchers over the plans.
Some 100 Labour MPs – more than a quarter of the party’s parliamentary numbers – are reported to have signed a letter urging ministers to scale back welfare cuts under consideration, according to media reports.
The private letter to Labour’s chief whip is separate from a similar one last week, in which 42 MPs said the cuts were “impossible to support”.
Speaking during a recent Westminster Hall debate, Ian Byrne, the Labour MP for Liverpool West Derby, said he was willing to “swim through vomit” to vote against the cuts.
Others including Richard Burgon (Leeds East), Rachael Maskell (York Central), and Andy McDonald (Middlesbrough and Thornaby East) also confirmed they would vote against the plans when they spoke during the debate.
Ellen Clifford, from Disabled People Against Cuts, said the campaign group supports the Leeds West and Pudsey CLP’s move.
She added: “We hope that the Chancellor takes note of the contents. The scale of the proposed cuts is horrific and will destroy communities, break public services through additional pressures and could well negatively impact the economy.
“They are cruel, badly thought through and entirely performative. Voters will not forget or forgive politicians who back these cuts.”
Reform
The Chancellor’s team, approached for comment, pointed to her previous messages to Labour MPs on the welfare cut proposals.
When asked last week what her message to concerned Labour backbenchers was, Ms Reeves said: “I don’t think anybody, including Labour MPs and members, think that the current welfare system created by the Conservative Party is working today.
“They know that the system needs reform. We do need to reform how the welfare system works if we’re going to grow our economy.”
Conservative shadow work and pensions secretary Helen Whately said: “Labour’s plans dodge the difficult decisions on welfare, leave more people out of work than they put in and will hit some of the nation’s poorest people.
“The sickness benefits bill is spiralling out of control and these rushed reforms will make things worse, not better.
“These plans are cruel, careless and clumsy. And it seems that even some of the people closest to Reeves agree with us, not her.”
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Did anyone ask them how they will save the 5 billion instead, for example, which departments budget they’ll cut or which tax promise they’ll break?!
I’m no fan of the current treasury team but the legacy left by the Tories was shocking
You don’t “save £5bn” by simply taking it out of the economy. That’s £5bn that won’t get spent; won’t generate VAT and, perhaps, duty receipts; won’t help keep shops open, so could lead to job losses. Job losses mean loss of income tax NICs and a bill for more benefits payments. It certainly won’t create the “growth” that is Reeves’ foundation plan.
£5bn, by the way, is less than the sum they magicked up (because they can) to buy the former MoD housing. Did we hear anything about fiscal rules and black holes when they did that?
Almost half of GDP comes from government spending so it’s inevitable that cuts shrink the economy. The Cons are still baffled by this idea, seriously still no clue why their austerity lead to a stagnant decade.
Where in the Labour Party manifesto did it say we will go after vulnerable elderly and disabled people to fix the country’s economic woes as caused by the Tories? They have other choices to improve the economy apart from this. The narrative that it must be done this way is simply not true. See the work done by Tax Justice UK. They have a list of alternatives the government can choose if it has the political will. They are not making moral choices. I am beyond disappointed with the current government. I never thought a so called Labour Government would… Read more »