Scores of Labour MPs have voiced significant doubts about the government’s welfare changes in a tense meeting with the work and pensions secretary.
About 100 MPs attended a private meeting in parliament with Liz Kendall and the disability minister, Stephen Timms. MPs said there were grave concerns in the room about the huge hit to incomes that the changes would mean, and one said a party whip appeared to be taking notes of who was raising their concerns.
Many voiced particular concerns about how hard some disabled people would be hit if they were found newly ineligible for personal independent payments (Pips) – which can be claimed by those who are both in work and out of work. The criteria is set to be significantly tightened, saving about £5bn.
There was also considerable anger about the effect on young people and that those under 22 will no longer be able to claim the incapacity benefit top-up to universal credit. MPs also questioned why many of the most controversial changes would not be subject to consultation.
Those who are not in work who are found newly ineligible for Pips would also lose their universal credit top-up and potentially other benefits linked to disability, which would mean a huge cut to incomes.
One MP said there was only one colleague in the room who defended the reforms without qualifications and that dozens of others had voiced concerns.
“It is highly unusual for this many people to be at a meeting like this,” one said. “They aren’t turning up to congratulate. People are there because they want to show the strength of feeling, they want to stop these cuts from happening.”
There was anger, too, at the lack of swift impact assessment of the cuts and ministers were pressed on a specific plan to help disabled people into work in a difficult jobs market. “No one was shouting or getting agitated but there was much more cold anger than I was expecting,” one MP said. Another said: “Let’s just say no one left in a better mood.”
MPs will vote on the changes in legislation expected in May. One MP said: “They are going to see a very big rebellion if this goes ahead, particularly these changes to the Pip, which means people who can’t wash and dress themselves might not get help.”
MPs who spoke to the Guardian described the meeting as “extremely critical” and “rammed with concerned colleagues” from a large cross-section of the party, including those considered to be on the right of the party and newly elected MPs.
One said it was hard to tell how much would translate into a parliamentary rebellion. “No one is thinking about that yet, we are thinking about how to get this changed,” they said.
MPs also pressed Kendall on whether the government had plans to bring back schemes such as the future jobs fund, introduced by Tony Blair’s government to help people with long-term sickness back into work. It was scrapped by the coalition government.
Kendall has retained £1bn from the planned cuts to put into back-to-work schemes but MPs said the plans were relatively vague apart from a commitment to improve the roles of work coaches. Impact assessments will be published by the government next week, alongside the spring statement.
Charlie Mayfield, the former chair of the John Lewis Partnership, is undertaking a review of disability and the employment market.
MPs said there was broad support in the room for the principle of changing sickness benefit, and the protection premium for the most vulnerable disabled people who will never be able to work.
“It is the harshness of the reform of Pip which is the key worry,” one MP said. “This will hit a lot of people who are genuinely severely disabled. Many of them will be already in work. So what are we trying to get at here?”
Under the new system, people who cannot cook a simple meal for themselves but can heat food up in a microwave would not be eligible for the payments unless they have other needs to be taken into account. Needing assistance to wash their hair or their body below the waist would also be judged as insufficient to claim the payments, which are worth up to £184 a week.
The Resolution Foundation thinktank said the plan would result in between 800,000 and 1.2 million people losing support of between £4,200 and £6,300 a year by 2029-30.
At prime minister’s questions, Keir Starmer faced criticism from the Labour MP Diane Abbott on the cuts, as well as from the SDLP’s Colum Eastwood and the Conservative MP Danny Kruger.
Abbott called on the prime minister to stop calling it a “moral case” to change the welfare system. “There is nothing moral about cutting benefits for what may be up to a million people,” she said. “This is not about morality; this is about the Treasury’s wish to balance the country’s books on the backs of the most vulnerable and poorest people in this society.”
