Prepare for Labour to try to force cuts through parliament
BENEFITS AND WORK
The Politico website has claimed that a bill to cut disability benefits will be introduced to parliament next week, allowing the first vote to take place as early as 30 June.
Whilst we have no way of knowing if this is correct, Labour are definitely running out of time if they want the bill to have completed all its commons stages by the start of the Summer recess on 22 July.
So this seems a good point at which to look at how Labour may try to rush the bill through parliament with minimum scrutiny and how campaigners can be prepared for this.
First reading
The forthcoming bill has to go through several stages before it becomes law.
The initial step is the first reading, which simply involves the bill’s title being read out in the commons. It is usually published immediately afterwards, so we will get our first look at the details.
The bill will very probably only introduce the changes to universal credit (UC) payment rates for new claims, due to take effect from 6 April 2026, and the 4-point rule for personal independence payment (PIP) due to start in November 2026.
Second reading
The second reading is where the bill is debated by the whole House of Commons and a vote takes place. The second reading doesn’t usually happen until at least two weekends have elapsed after the first reading.
So, if Labour publish the bill anywhere between Monday 16 and Friday 20 June, the second reading could take place as early as Monday 30 June.
The bill could be voted down at this stage if enough Labour MPs rebel and opposition parties unite against it.
If not, it will carry on to the committee stage.
Meanwhile, Labour whips will be targeting any rebels they think they can bully or bribe into supporting the government and also leaning on anyone they think might be at risk of going over to the rebels.
Bear in mind that some Labour MPs may be thinking of rebelling but are waiting until the third reading, in order to give the government a chance to make its case before finally deciding. So even if this first vote is won by the government, all is not lost.
Committee stage
The committee stage can be a lengthy affair.
A “public bill committee” of 17 MPs take evidence from the public and from experts, before debating and selecting amendments to be put before the whole House. The make up of the committee reflects that of the House, so there would be a Labour majority.
After a public bill committee there is a report stage for the whole house to look at what has been done in committee and vote on amendments.
Straight after the report stage, the bill goes to its third reading and a vote.
However, in this case, the suspicion is that Labour will opt for a “committee of the whole house”. This means that all MPs get to take part in the discussion of amendments and vote on them. But, no evidence from the public or experts is allowed and the whole process will be completed in a single day.
There is also no report stage, so the bill goes straight to its third reading after committee.
So a committee of the whole house is an effective way to rush a bill through and prevent MPs hearing from disability charities, think tanks, disabled people’s organisations and claimants themselves.
Third reading
Once the bill has completed its report stage, if there is one, a third reading takes place.
This is the final opportunity for MPs to either pass or reject the bill. No further amendments are allowed, so MPs must either accept the whole bill or reject it all.
Depending on how the proceedings have gone, some rebels may decide to back down and support the government or some loyalists may decide that they have not been convinced by the government and will now join the rebels.
House of Lords
Ordinarily, after the third reading, the bill would go to the House of Lords where amendments may be made and the bill is then passed back to the Commons, who can either accept or reject them. The bill may then go back and forth between the two houses until agreement is reached. This can take many months.
The House of Lords is made up of:
- 286 Conservative
- 212 Labour
- 181 crossbench
- 77 Liberal Democrat
Plus around 90 non-affiliated peers, bishops and smaller parties.
So, Labour does not have a majority in the Lords and, if the Conservatives decide to oppose the bill, the Lords could delay its passage for a considerable period, whilst pressuring the Commons to accept amendments.
However, there is a strong possibility that Labour will try to have this bill certified as a money bill.
If Labour succeed in doing so, then the House of Lords can hold up the bill for a maximum of a month and pass amendments. But the government can simply ignore the amendments and, at the end of the one month period, the bill is sent for Royal Assent and becomes law. So, in most cases, the Lords do not suggest amendments to a money bill and it passes without opposition.
Getting certified as a money bill
Ultimately, it isn’t up to Labour to decide if a bill can be certified as a money bill. This is a decision for the Speaker of the House, advised by officials.
And the Speaker won’t give a ruling until the bill has completed the committee and, if there is one, report stage. This is because amendments to the bill could change its nature and mean that it could no longer be certified as a money bill.
The introduction of the 4-point rule for PIP can probably be passed off as being solely about public finance, as its primary aim is to reduce the cost of disability benefits.
But there is certainly an argument that the changes to UC are primarily about social policy rather than money, because the aim is to reduce the alleged “perverse incentive” for people to claim benefits rather than work. It’s not a money-saving provision: it simply moves cash from disabled claimants to those who are capable of work, in order to effect “behavioural change”.
Whatever the Speaker decides, however, that is the end of the matter and there is no way of challenging the decision, even in court.
What Labour hopes
Labour is very much hoping that the bill will pass all its Commons stages before the Summer recess starts on 22 July.
But they will also be hoping that it will be able to bypass effective scrutiny from the House of Lords, otherwise the process may drag on into the Autumn, when the Office for Budget responsibility will publish its assessment of how many disabled claimants are likely to find work.
What can campaigners do?
A great deal depends on what happens over the next few weeks and campaigners should be ready to begin another round of emails, letters and protests at very short notice.
Once we know what is in the bill, people will want to contact their MP and tell them how they hope they will vote.
It will still also be worth contacting local councillors and asking them to speak urgently to their MP.
And anything that can be got into local media and social media encouraging people to contact their MPs has to be worth doing.
In addition, if you have any connection with disability charities, right now is the time to urge them to prepare a mail (or email) shot to MPs. Because there is a real chance the process will be over very quickly, without them having any opportunity to give evidence at committee stage.
Finally, it will definitely be worth sending messages of support and encouragement to MPs who vote against the bill at second reading, if it does go on to committee stage, because they will be getting a lot of flak from some quarters. And if your MP voted in favour of the bill, it will still be worth politely trying to persuade them to change their mind, as they may well be wavering.
Please note: we are very far from being experts on parliamentary procedure, so if you spot any errors in this article, please do contact us and we will correct them.
This article (Prepare for Labour to try to force cuts through parliament) was created and published by Benefits and Work and is republished here under “Fair Use”
See Related Article Below
A new FOI has destroyed Labour’s argument that its DWP PIP cuts will support disabled people into work
HANNAH SHARLAND
The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) cuts to the Personal Independence Payment (PIP) will strip more working claimants of the benefit than claimants not in work. This is according to figures the department has revealed to Private Eye in a Freedom of Information (FOI) request. Of course, it blows a gaping hole in the government’s claims that its so-called reforms to welfare will help chronically ill and disabled people into work.
Of course, to these communities, it has been patently clear from the beginning that the Labour Party government has little interest in actually doing so – a fact that repeated revelations have continued to cement. Now, Private Eye’s new findings are only more damning ahead of the government imminently laying these plans before parliament.
DWP PIP cuts FOI: new figures show up government claims
The government is gearing up to lay its suite of regressive so-called reforms to PIP and other benefits before parliament.
Its plans will mean that disabled people who need help with things like cutting up food, supervision, prompting, or assistance to wash, dress, or monitor their health condition, will no longer be eligible for PIP.
Specifically, it’s increasing the number of points a person will need to score in their assessment to access the daily living component of the benefit. This will now require people to score four points or more in a daily living category to claim it.
Alongside this, there’ll be cuts to out-of-work benefits like the LCWRA health-related component of Universal Credit. Once again, Labour wants to make this harder to claim. It’s doing so as it ramps up reassessments and conditionality requirements for doing so.
DWP boss Liz Kendall set out these plans in the government’s Green Paper in March. And since then, the work and pensions secretary, alongside other government ministers (including prime minister Keir Starmer himself), has sought to justify the cuts under claims that the reforms will support disabled people into work.
Of course, chronically ill and disabled people have been pointing out how preposterous this is. Cutting PIP will categorically not help these communities into employment. This is not least because many who claim it are too sick to work. Moreover, the cuts will in fact put more barriers in place. So as opposed to dismantling the many obstacles already impacting chronically ill and disabled communities’ daily lives, it’s only adding to them. That’s hardly going to help individuals to access employment.
Now, new figures obtained by Private Eye have further put paid to this idea again – and shown up the government in the process.
Working claimants to lose PIP
Private Eye’s DWP PIP cuts FOI to the department revealed that:
- Of the 2.69 million people claiming PIP, 510,000 are working.
- Under the government’s plans, 281,000 – more than half – will lose their PIP. This is due to the new four-point rule it wants to introduce.
In other words, as the magazine highlighted, the DWP PIP cuts FOI showed it will actually hit more claimants in work than not in work. It shows that the government’s claims its ‘reforms’ will support more disabled people into employment are therefore utter nonsense.
Notably, as Private Eye exampled, chronically ill and disabled people rely on PIP to help them access work.
In a nutshell, PIP is there to level the playing field for chronically ill and disabled people. There are a huge number of barriers across society, that have been built and maintained for uplifting non-disabled people. Naturally, it means disabled people have higher costs in many aspects of their lives. Therefore, PIP is there to help with this, and enable them to access aids and supports they use for daily living.
Of course, it’s something government ministers have purposely left out from their punch down on PIP claimants.
Making it harder for disabled people all round
What’s more, the eligibility changes to PIP are only part of the picture. The government’s sweeping changes to Universal Credit will also compound all this further. Notably, it intends to align the work capability assessment (WCA) for the LCWRA to the PIP assessment. Alongside this, it’s going to cut the health part of Universal Credit. That tweak alone will cost claimants not able to work £146 a month.
The Canary has pointed out before how, for people unable to work, PIP (plus Universal Credit LCWRA) doesn’t even take a single claimant up to the national minimum wage. And that’s factoring in the higher rate of both components to PIP – which the majority don’t get anyway. It’s little wonder disabled people are twice as likely to live in poverty. The state’s equitability benefit amounts to paltry poverty pay at best. And it’s about to make all this inordinately worse.
To top it off, the government has made moves to strip back the Access to Work scheme. Some disabled people use PIP to afford the aids and accessibility interventions the scheme should be providing. Due to spiralling backlogs and in-built ableism of the scheme and the department delivering it, for many, it simply isn’t. Instead of fixing this, there are indications it wants to restrict the scheme even further.
In short, everything it’s doing will make it HARDER for disabled people who can or might one day be able to work to actually enter and stay in the workforce.
The government knows, but it doesn’t care
So when it comes down to it, cutting PIP will only plunge chronically ill and disabled people into poverty. What it won’t do is help them into work or enable them to increase their hours.
Make no mistake, the government knows all this – as these figures direct from the DWP itself prove.
And ultimately, as the Canary’s Rachel Charlton-Dailey has pointed out, the government also knows PIP isn’t an out-of-work benefit. It has been deliberately blurring the line to drum up division in the communities the cuts will impact. It has leaned into rancid ableist, classist, Victorian ‘deserving poor’-style rhetoric to decide which chronically ill and disabled people are worthy of support. This all sits amid a media and political landscape that paints claimants not in work as ‘scroungers’, ‘skivers’, or ‘an economic drain on the taxpayer’.
Moreover, Charlton-Dailey highlighted how the DWP is counting on disabled people justifying their right to exist through its own capitalist frame. That is, chronically and disabled people tying their value to being ‘productive’ cogs generating capital for the profiteering asset class. Charlton-Dailey underscored how perpetually pointing out that PIP is not an out-of-work benefit only feeds the government’s divisive ‘deserving’ versus ‘not deserving’ narrative.
Let’s be abundantly clear: this is the government deciding who deserves to live. There’s a word for the state-sanctioned poverty policies like this: democide. That will be the result – chronically ill and disabled people will die. The government knows this too, but has obstinately refused to acknowledge it to the public. In the footsteps of callous welfare cuts of Conservative past, Labour is weighing up the economic value of marginalised communities’ lives. And it has determined they’re worth more to society dead.
Figures that don’t fit its narrative
None of this is even to recognise how PIP is already woefully inadequate. It doesn’t come close to covering the extra costs an inaccessible, ableist capitalist society saddles chronically ill and disabled people with. Yet Starmer and co now want fewer to have access to even this pitiful amount of state support. That’s the case whether claimants are in work or not – as Private Eye’s FOI has made clear.
At the end of the day, the government’s motivation behind the cuts is just about paring back the welfare state en masse. The DWP has had these facts from the start, but it didn’t fit the image it wanted to project to the public. This is its fabricated reality
in which it actually gives a shit about chronically ill and disabled people. Now, there’s no hiding behind outlandish pretexts that its ‘reforms’ will support these communities. Ultimately, for all its bluster about this, it will do precisely the opposite.
This article (A new FOI has destroyed Labour’s argument that its DWP PIP cuts will support disabled people into work) was created and published by The Canary and is republished here under “Fair Use” with attribution to the author Hannah Sharland
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