Welfare Cuts Will Push 250,000 People Into Poverty, Says Government Impact Assessment
3 min read
Labour’s welfare reforms will see an additional 250,000 people – including 50,000 children – pushed into relative poverty, government analysis has found.
Published on Wednesday alongside Chancellor Rachel Reeves' Spring Statement, the Department for Work and Pensions assessment looks at how benefits cuts being introduced by the government will affect those impacted.
It forecasts that by 2029/30, 3.2m families will suffer an average financial loss of £1,720 a year.
For example, people who are no longer eligible for the Personal Independent Payments as a result of the changes will lose £4,500 on average, according to the assessment.
The government argues that major reform of the welfare system is needed because the amount of money paid out in the form of benefits is not sustainable.
Work and Pensions Secretary Liz Kendall said last week that the changes would "help people stay in work" and "get back to work more quickly".
However, the government impact assessment published today will likely only fuel the concerns of Labour MPs who believe welfare cuts go too far.
Bell Ribeiro-Addy, Labour MP for Clapham and Brixton Hill, said she would vote against the cuts in a statement following the Spring Statement. "No Labour MP should be voting to push children into poverty," she said.
Another Labour MP said they were "shocked and appalled" by the figures in the impact assessment, telling PoliticsHome that there is "fury" within the party.
Veteran left-wing Labour MP Diane Abbott recently wrote in The House Magazine: "You wonder whether it occurs to the Labour leadership that voters will begin to notice that whenever they want money, they take it from the most vulnerable – old people, poor children and now the disabled."
Helen Barnard, director of policy, research and information at Trussell, said that the welfare cuts risked forcing “more people to skip meals and turn to food banks to get by”.
“These cruel cuts are out of touch with what voters want from this government,” she said following the Chancellor's Spring Statement this afternoon.
"The government says people voted for change, but we know that seven in ten voters across political parties agree the social security for disabled people should at least be enough to cover essential living costs. This is a change for the worse, and it is disabled people who will pay the price.”
Reeves today told MPs that she would have broken her own fiscal rules had she not brought in further welfare cuts on top of what was announced by Kendall last week.
Paul Novak, General Secretary of the Trades Union Congress, said the government should not base long-term policy making on short-term forecasts produced by the Office for Budget Responsibility, and urged ministers to think again on the welfare reforms.
"Decisions that affect millions of people’s lives must be made with care – not as a last-minute response to changed fiscal forecasts," he said.
