If the government’s planned changes to PIP are meant to support disabled people, they have a strange way of showing it. These PIP reforms are a betrayal – and Labour should know better.
The new “four-point rule” will push more than a million people out of eligibility for daily living support—including people with cancer, arthritis, mental health problems, and other long-term conditions.
That’s not reform—that’s erasure.
The government claims most people will still qualify, but even its own data suggests otherwise: 87 per cent of standard daily living recipients currently score less than four points in every individual activity category.
Under the proposed rule, they would be cut off.
This isn’t about targeting a few people who are “gaming the system”—PIP fraud is virtually non-existent.
It’s about quietly slashing support for the people who need it most.
And what of the government’s claim that this data is “partial”?
Where’s the rest of it, then?
Why are these proposals being pushed through without full disclosure or public consultation?
Are we really expected to accept a policy of this magnitude based on incomplete numbers and vague reassurances?
PIP was never designed to “trap people out of work” – on the contrary, it exists to help people manage their extra living costs—including costs that make it possible to work. Take that support away, and more disabled people will be pushed out of employment, not into it.
Labour’s decision to champion these changes is especially troubling. This is a party that once fought against austerity-era welfare cuts. Now it risks replicating them under a different banner.
If Labour truly wants to support working people, it must recognise that many disabled people already work—and that those who don’t often can’t, not because of a “broken system,” but because of genuine health limitations.
Empty slogans like “we’ll protect the most vulnerable” mean nothing if the definition of “vulnerable” is so narrow it excludes hundreds of thousands.
These changes will deepen poverty, increase homelessness, and leave many people without any support at all.
If this is what reform looks like, it’s time to go back to the drawing board.
PIP reforms are a betrayal – and Labour should know better
If the government’s planned changes to PIP are meant to support disabled people, they have a strange way of showing it. These PIP reforms are a betrayal – and Labour should know better.
The new “four-point rule” will push more than a million people out of eligibility for daily living support—including people with cancer, arthritis, mental health problems, and other long-term conditions.
That’s not reform—that’s erasure.
The government claims most people will still qualify, but even its own data suggests otherwise: 87 per cent of standard daily living recipients currently score less than four points in every individual activity category.
Under the proposed rule, they would be cut off.
This isn’t about targeting a few people who are “gaming the system”—PIP fraud is virtually non-existent.
It’s about quietly slashing support for the people who need it most.
And what of the government’s claim that this data is “partial”?
Where’s the rest of it, then?
Why are these proposals being pushed through without full disclosure or public consultation?
Are we really expected to accept a policy of this magnitude based on incomplete numbers and vague reassurances?
PIP was never designed to “trap people out of work” – on the contrary, it exists to help people manage their extra living costs—including costs that make it possible to work. Take that support away, and more disabled people will be pushed out of employment, not into it.
Labour’s decision to champion these changes is especially troubling. This is a party that once fought against austerity-era welfare cuts. Now it risks replicating them under a different banner.
If Labour truly wants to support working people, it must recognise that many disabled people already work—and that those who don’t often can’t, not because of a “broken system,” but because of genuine health limitations.
Empty slogans like “we’ll protect the most vulnerable” mean nothing if the definition of “vulnerable” is so narrow it excludes hundreds of thousands.
These changes will deepen poverty, increase homelessness, and leave many people without any support at all.
If this is what reform looks like, it’s time to go back to the drawing board.
you might also like
Let’s start the New Year with some hopeful news
More mistakes in the script? Correcting Cameron’s New Year speech
Osborne wants a ‘year of hard truths’. Here’s one: He’s HIDING the truth