STEPHEN Flynn has spoken about his own experience with disability as he challenged the Prime Minister on Labour’s sweeping cuts to welfare payments.
Raising the UK Government’s cuts to disability benefits at PMQs, the SNP Westminster leader asked Keir Starmer how they would help lift children out of poverty.
The exchange came after reports confirmed that Chancellor Rachel Reeves would cut some £4.8 billion from welfare payments, but before a Department for Work and Pensions analysis showed the reforms would push 250,000 people, including 50,000 children, into poverty.
Flynn said: “Those who know me well know that I don't talk of this often, but for half of my adult life, I was physically disabled.
“Indeed, when I first walked through the doors of this here chamber, I did so with a crutch in my right arm to support my body weight. I know how it feels.
“Right now in Scotland, some 55% of children living in poverty have a member of their household who is a disabled person.
“So can the Prime Minister explain to me – actually, no, can the Prime Minister explain to those children, how the Labour Party making mum and dad poorer will lift them out of poverty?”
Responding, Starmer said that his own family had experience with disability, a point he had made when defending his cuts to disability benefits earlier this month.
The Prime Minister said: “I'm grateful to him for sharing his personal experience on this and he is right to do so.
“My family has had living with disability for many years as well, so I do understand the human element of this.
“We do need to give support to those that need it, we do need to help those who want to work into work, but we need to be clear that those who can work should work.
“In England, we inherited a failed system that couldn't be defended, but it's also failing in Scotland, 84,000 young Scots – he focuses on young people – that's 15% of young Scots, not in employment, education or training, that is terrible.
“Almost 300,000 Scots economically inactive due to temporary or long-term illness.
“Now what we're doing is taking the steps to help people into work, a billion pounds of employment support.
“They have record funding under the government, under the budget. What are they going to do to help the young Scots who have been failed by their government?”
“Too many commentators/media reports still accepting UKG line that cuts to PIP are about helping people back to work,” she wrote on social media.
“PIP is a recognition of the additional costs of a disability/long-term condition. It is NOT related to being in or out of work.”
PIP is given to people in order to help cover the additional cost of their disabilities. Labour are cutting it back by reducing who can be eligible for it.
According to DWP estimates, Labour’s cuts mean that “370,000 current recipients [will] lose entitlement (when they have an award review) and 430,000 future PIP recipients [will] not get the PIP they would otherwise have been entitled”.
“The average loss is £4500 per year,” the analysis adds.
Flynn was diagnosed with avascular necrosis, when bone tissue dies because it’s not getting enough blood supply, aged 13. He had a " life-changing" hip replacement in 2020.
