£3,000,000,000 cut to benefits will ‘push disabled people into poverty’

Campaigners have warned the government’s plans to cut billions from benefits could push ‘many more’ disabled people into poverty.

Disability charity Scope said such massive cuts would make it more difficult for many people on benefits to find a job, as the government sets out plans for bringing millions of Brits back into employment.

It comes after DWP minister Sir Stephen Timms defended the cuts, stating they are ‘wholly consistent’ with getting people into work.

Chancellor Rachel Reeves has picked up the previous Conservative government’s target of slashing £3 billion from the UK’s benefits bill, with a plan expected in the next few weeks.

Sir Stephen Timms, the disability and social security minister, told Metro he did not consider the two to be mutually exclusive.

He said: ‘I think that delivering the savings which have been committed to is wholly consistent with changing the system so that it supports people better.’

The minister added: ‘We do have to deliver stability in the economy, and that means we’ve got to deliver those savings.

‘But we believe we can do it in a way that improves the way the system works, and that’s what we’re going to be setting out in the plans in the spring, and we’re taking it very carefully.’

Last week, Sir Stephen visited the Camden HQ of St Mungo’s in north London to see how the homeless charity was helping its hostel residents learn the skills they would need to go into long-term employment.

A facility below the building is used to teach ‘clients’ plumbing, wiring, tiling and decorating – a scheme the minister suggested could help the UK hit the never-seen-before 80% employment rate mooted last November.

That figure was at the centre of the government’s Get Britain Working white paper, which set out plans to boost the economy by getting millions of people with a long-term sickness or lack of basic skills into a job.

However, James Taylor of disability equality charity Scope said a tendency to start with ‘a figure to cut, rather than on what works to support disabled people into jobs’ has continually led governments to ‘come unstuck’.

He added: ‘Life costs a lot more for disabled people. Our employment advisers find the stress of knowing benefits could be stopped for not meeting certain conditions makes it much harder for disabled people to find work.

‘Cutting benefits spend means taking away the support disabled people need to live, which will push many more disabled people into poverty.’

Mikey Erhardt, a campaigner at Disability Rights UK, added: ‘Making sure there is food on the table and a warm, safe roof over our heads is the number one priority for most of us.

‘It is only when we can stop worrying about these basic day-to-day things that we can really focus on the bigger things in life.

‘When people are unwell or when they have long-term impairments or health conditions, then we as a decent society should give them the level of benefits that they need to live on. That’s something everyone agrees on.’

Sir Stephen said: ‘We know that many, many people who are not working at the moment, who are out of work on health grounds or disability grounds, would love to be in a job. They haven’t had the chance up till now.

‘We’re going to change that, and we are wholly committed to making sure that the system supports those who are not going to be working which, of course, there always will be and the system has to do that as well.’

This spring, the Department for Work and Pensions will launch a Green Paper to consult on the best way the cuts can be delivered.

Work and Pensions Secretary Liz Kendall has said the £3 billion target for cuts to support will not change, no matter the result of the consultation.

Writing in the Sun on Sunday yesterday, Reeves said the UK ‘cannot keep footing the bill for the spiralling numbers of people out of work’ and the government’s plans would ‘turn the DWP from a Department of Welfare into a Department for Work’.

Those plans will be made public before Easter, she said.

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