SCOTTISH Labour leader Anas Sarwar has denied there are any tensions between him and his frontbencher Carol Mochan after she criticised UK Government’s welfare cuts.
Sarwar has spent the last week suggesting Labour’s decision to cut £5 billion per year from disability benefits does not amount to austerity, insisting it is the “very opposite” of that.
Meanwhile, his MSP Mochan tweeted after the announcement from Work and Pensions Secretary Liz Kendall: “Austerity has never been a sustainable path to growth.
"We cannot balance the books on the backs of people who require benefits just to have a passable standard of living. These reforms are a mistake and should not go ahead."
It has led to questions over whether factions are forming in the Scottish Labour ranks.
But asked by The National if Mochan will face any disciplinary action for labelling the UK Government’s policy “austerity”, Sarwar seemed to suggest she wouldn’t, calling her a “fantastic” MSP.
He said: “Carol Mochan is a fantastic member of the Scottish Parliament, a fantastic advocate for her local community and will be a fantastic minister in a Scottish Labour government.
“You’re asking me about austerity, austerity means public spending goes down. Public spending is going up, the very opposite of austerity.”
Monica Lennon was another MSP who came out and said the UK Government’s cuts were “wrong” as she threw her weight behind the views of Neil Findlay – a former MSP who quit Labour after 35 years of membership over the welfare cuts.
Groups representing disabled people condemned the “cruel cuts” as “immoral and devastating” as they argued the changes will “push more disabled people into poverty, and worsen people’s health”.
Asked if he feared a rebellion from his MSPs, Sarwar said he had a “fantastically cohesive and motivated” group at the Scottish Parliament.
It has been reported Kendall has been having "tense" meetings with Labour MPs to try to reassure them about cuts to disability benefits.
But one MP told me ITV they left the meeting "feeling worse than when they walked in" while another said they weren't sure "how much longer we can claim this isn’t austerity".
The Labour cuts will largely come from changes to the eligibility for Personal Independence Payments (PIPs).
Hundreds of thousands of people are expected to be affected by the changes, though the UK Government has not yet published an impact assessment, so there is no way of knowing at the moment how many people exactly will see their benefits cut.
While PIP is being phased out in Scotland, with the devolved Adult Disability Payments (ADP) administered by Social Security Scotland expected to fully replace it by the end of 2025, the UK welfare cuts will reduce the money returning to Scotland for ADP.
Asked whether a Scottish Labour government would follow suit in changing the eligibility for ADP in the future, as the UK Government has done for PIPs, Sarwar did not appear to rule it out.
He said: “I think the thing to look at it here is we need to stay open-minded.
"We’ve got a devolved benefit, we continue to support that devolved benefit, and this is a change to a benefit that exists in England and if there are positive or negative lessons to learn from that, of course, we’ll reflect on that and how we approach ADP.
“But it’s important to stress the changes to PIP are not changes to ADP.”
