Changes to welfare reforms not enough to protect newly sick and disabled people from financial hardship
About 50,000 people who become disabled or chronically ill will be pushed into poverty by the end of the decade because of cuts to incapacity benefit, despite ministers dropping the bulk of its welfare reform plans, MPs have warned.
The work and pensions select committee report welcomed ministers’ decision earlier this month to drop some of the most controversial aspects of its disability reforms in the face of a parliamentary revolt by over 100 Labour backbenchers.
These included the wholesale scrapping of proposed major changes to personal independence payment (Pip) eligibility that would have seen around 800,000 people no longer qualifying for the benefit by the end of the decade.
The government also ditched plans to freeze the value of the incapacity element of universal credit for existing claimants, affecting over 2m people by 2029-30, though it kept in place proposals to half the weekly rate for new claimants.
