Minister to melt impression of deliberate incapacity profit cuts | EUROtoday

Work and Pensions Secretary Liz Kendall is making modifications to her bundle of welfare reforms in an try and reassure Labour MPs who’re contemplating rebelling towards the plans.

Kendall has tried to melt the impression of deliberate advantages cuts price £5bn a 12 months by 2030 earlier than MPs vote on the federal government’s welfare modifications.

The welfare reform invoice will embrace proposals to make it tougher for disabled individuals with much less extreme situations to say private independence fee (Pip).

The BBC has been instructed anyone who loses Pip will obtain the fee for a transitional interval of 13 weeks, moderately than the same old 4 weeks, earlier than it’s eliminated.

Carer’s allowance will proceed to be paid throughout the 13-week transition, however will likely be ended when Pip is taken away.

Benefits recipients with probably the most extreme well being situations is not going to be reassessed and can obtain additional earnings assist via a common credit score fee.

A scheme to present disabled individuals a proper to attempt employment with out the chance of dropping their advantages can even be launched similtaneously the welfare reform invoice.

Kendall has described these additions as “non-negotiable” protections, which will likely be added to the invoice earlier than it’s revealed subsequent week.

The protections had been proposed within the authorities’s Pathways to Work inexperienced paper and consulted on earlier than Kendall determined so as to add them to the invoice.

Kendall instructed the Guardian newspaper: “When we set out our reforms we promised to protect those most in need, particularly those who can never work.

“I do know from my 15 years as a constituency MP how essential that is. It is one thing I take critically and can by no means compromise on.

“That is why we are putting additional protections on the face of the Bill to support the most vulnerable and help people affected by the changes.

“These protections will likely be written into legislation, a transparent signal they’re non-negotiable.”

The BBC understands the protections had been raised in discussions between ministers, Labour MPs and disability rights groups.

Dozens of Labour MPs have expressed concerns about the plans to cut Pip payments and the sickness-related element of universal credit (UC).

Many have said they are prepared to vote against the primary legislation the government needs to pass to make the changes to welfare payments.

The welfare package as a whole could push an extra 250,000 people, including 50,000 children, into relative poverty, according to the government’s impact assessment.

Neil Duncan-Jordan is one of 42 Labour MPs who wrote a letter that said the welfare reforms were “not possible to assist” if changes were not made.

When asked what he made of the protections Kendall had added to the bill, Duncan-Jordan said: “Poverty delayed remains to be poverty.”

Another discontented Labour MP, Ian Byrne, said: “After 14 weeks do the disabled and sick affected miraculously finish the necessity for the very important help being taken away? An absolute nonsense.”

And Labour MP Rachael Maskell said Kendall had “simply restated the proposals in Pathways to Work with a three-month transition earlier than individuals lose their assist”.

She added: “It will due to this fact not change the fabric information nor my intention to vote towards.”

Another Labour MP said the added protections will not stop dozens of his colleagues from opposing the bill.

“The whips are pushing very exhausting with MPs nevertheless it’s not working,” the Labour MP said.

But one supportive Labour MP said Kendall’s protections sounded sensible.

Some Labour MPs used the government’s U-turn on winter fuel payments to renew their calls for the planned benefit cuts to be reversed.

But on Thursday, Chancellor Rachel Reeves said the government would not row back on the cuts.

“We’re not going to be altering that,” she told the BBC. “It is essential that we reform the best way the welfare state works.”

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) says it expects 3.2 million families – a mixture of current and future recipients – to lose out financially, as a result of the total package of measures, with an average loss of £1,720 per year.

This includes 370,000 current Pip recipients who will no longer qualify and 430,000 future claimants who will get less than they would previously have been entitled to.

But ministers have stressed the figures do not factor in the government’s plans to spend £1bn on helping the long-term sick and disabled back into work, or its efforts to reduce poverty.

Ministers hope these efforts will boost employment among benefits recipients, at a time when 2.8 million people are economically inactive due to long-term sickness.

If nothing changes, the health and disability benefits bill is forecast to reach £70bn a year by the end of the decade, a level of spending the government says is “unsustainable”.

The authorities is planning to place the welfare reforms in place by November 2026 and nobody will lose out on advantages funds till that occurs.