Neil Duncan-Jordan

I rise to call for the removal of clauses 2 and 3 from the Bill, because I think they get to the heart of the unfairness contained within it. There can be no doubt for those of us who were here last week that trust was eroded between the Government and disabled people’s organisations—that trust will need to be slowly rebuilt over the coming months. We should therefore recognise that a positive step in that direction is the Government’s decision to pause on the issue of PIP reform and to place those decisions in the hands of the Timms review. However, that is not enough, because the Bill still contains a proposal to cut £2 billion from the universal credit health element for more than 750,000 future claimants. From next April, we will have created a two-tier benefits system based not on health needs, but on the date when a claim was made. In fact, there are already nearly 4.8 million disabled people living in poverty today across the country. That is a damning indictment of our welfare system and should be a wake-up call to bring that number down, not to make it go even higher. The numbers are stark. Taking £3,000 a year, or £250 a month, from disabled people’s income will force families to a crisis point and into further reliance on food banks. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation claims that if the cuts are not removed, an additional 50,000 people will be forced into poverty. Even before this cut, three quarters of all universal credit health element recipients are already experiencing material deprivation and are unable to afford the essentials on which to live. If we are serious about genuinely reforming the benefits system and putting disabled people and their organisations at the heart of any changes, I cannot see why the health element of universal credit would not also be part of the Timms review.