Cutting benefits for disabled people is “not a Labour thing to do”, Diane Abbott has said, as a backlash grows within the party over a planned overhaul of the welfare system that could mean hundreds of thousands of claimants lose money.
Abbott, the party’s longest-serving MP, warned that over time, many voters would look at policies such as cuts to benefits “and think: is this my Labour party?”
Andy Burnham, the Labour mayor of Greater Manchester, has also warned against tightening the eligibility criteria for benefit payments or reducing the amounts, saying this would “trap too many people in poverty”.
Amid growing alarm among Labour backbenchers, ministers are expected to ditch plans to freeze personal independent payments (Pip). But Liz Kendall, the work and pensions secretary, will set out plans on Tuesday to tighten eligibility criteria for the benefit.
Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, Abbott cited Burnham’s worries about the plans, and those expressed by the former Labour chancellor Ed Balls.
“I agree with him, and Ed Balls agrees with him,” Abbott said. “It’s Ed Balls who said recently that cutting the money for disabled people is not a Labour thing to do, and there are very many Labour supporters out there who agree with them.
“When people say that being on benefits, or disability benefits even, is a lifestyle choice, do they know the sort of housing those people live in? Do they know what a struggle is it to live on that money? And do they know how humiliating it can be? Nobody would choose that lifestyle.
“I think being on welfare is very depressing, it’s very humiliating, it sort of brings you down. But I have no sympathy with the idea that the way to get people out of welfare is to cut the money they have to live on. I have no sympathy with the idea that it’s a lifestyle choice.”
Saying she would prefer a wealth tax to balance the economy, Abbott warned Keir Starmer about the cumulative effect of his policies: “The next general election will be fought not on foreign policy, but on what’s happening domestically. And there are so many people, as the years go on, who will look at the cuts we’ve made to welfare, look at the cuts we’ve made to the fuel allowance and think: is this my Labour party?”
Writing in the Times on Monday, Burnham called for a wider change in approach: “I would share concerns about changing support and eligibility to benefits while leaving the current top-down system broadly in place. It would trap too many people in poverty. And to be clear: there is no case in any scenario for cutting the support available to disabled people who are unable to work.”
Speaking for the government on Monday, Emma Reynolds, a Treasury minister, argued that the current benefit system was “failing young people” by being too binary. She added: “But the severely disabled and the most vulnerable will always get support, and there will always be a safety net.”
She also urged colleagues to wait and see what Kendall announced: “Some colleagues are jumping to conclusions about our plans before they’ve heard them, so I just urge them to be patient.”
