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Liz Kendall says the government will press ahead with disability benefit cuts – with no impact assessment, in defiance of warnings from experts, MPs, and her own backbenchers – to meet an arbitrary November deadline.

The £4.8 billion cuts, affecting Personal Independence Payments (PIP) and incapacity-related Universal Credit, are being sold as a reform to reduce fraud and “incentivise work.” There are just two problems with this:

• There is no fraud among disability benefit claimants (at least, none worth mentioning).
• PIP is paid to people who are in work and taking it away will take more people out of work than it puts in.

Critics say the measures are a political choice, not a fiscal necessity—and one that risks repeating a deadly history.

The proposed reforms will:

• Make it harder to qualify for PIP

• Freeze support for existing claimants

• Cut payments by 50 per cent for new claimants from 2026

The government’s own impact assessment, released under pressure, estimates that 3.2 million families will lose an average of £1,720 per year—and that 250,000 people will be pushed into relative poverty.

Ignoring the lessons of the past

This isn’t the first time cuts of this kind have been tried.

The last major wave of disability benefit reform, introduced under Conservative-led governments from 2010, resulted in:

• More than 100,000 people dying within six months of being declared “fit for work”

• At least 590 additional suicides linked directly to the benefit changes, according to peer-reviewed studies

• A United Nations investigation that concluded the UK had committed “grave and systematic violations” of disabled people’s rights

Those consequences were not unforeseen. They were documented in reports by the DWP, NHS England, academic institutions, and coroners’ inquests.

Now, with a new government in charge, the same policies are being reintroduced—and the same outcomes predicted.

A collective of more than 40 leading social scientists published an open letter last month, warning:

“Previous reforms increased mental illness and suicide risk. Claimants were not helped into work, but instead fell into destitution. The so-called savings were cancelled out by surging demand on the NHS and emergency services.”

Despite this, Kendall wrote to the Work and Pensions Committee to confirm that there would be no delay, and no impact assessment before the vote, because legislation must be passed by November to meet a 2026 start date for the cuts to be imposed.

Labour MP Debbie Abrahams, who chairs the committee, warned the government that pushing ahead could result in “unintended consequences,” including worsening health, greater poverty, and rising suicide rates.

Stourbridge MP Cat Eccles said she was “disappointed” by Kendall’s refusal to reconsider, calling it “a tunnel-vision approach” that “ignores evidence-based advice” and risks “pushing the most vulnerable into unnecessary poverty and hardship.”

One MP told ITV News, “I don’t think they’re listening to us on welfare reform at all.”

“You cannot say you did not know”

The rationale for the cuts rests heavily on claims about fraud—but the government’s own data undercuts that argument. PIP fraud stood at 0.0 per cent for years, and is currently just 0.4 per cent. Of the £9.7 billion lost across the welfare system to fraud and error in 2023–24, only £190 million—just 2.35 per cent—came from disability benefits.

Yet disabled people are being disproportionately targeted.

According to the Resolution Foundation, the new cuts will:

• Slash £8.3 billion from social security

• Push 250,000 people into poverty

• Cost some disabled families as much as £10,300 per year

Mental health organisations are already warning of a crisis in the making, as people with severe conditions report suicidal ideation purely in anticipation of the changes.

“These are not projections. These are facts,” said one disability campaigner. “And if these reforms go ahead, the responsibility will lie with the ministers who enacted them.”

A growing rebellion

Up to 170 Labour MPs are understood to have raised concerns internally, including some who serve as Parliamentary Private Secretaries and at least one junior minister.

The looming vote—expected in the week of June 30—could spark the biggest rebellion of Keir Starmer’s premiership (so far).

But despite the warnings from academics, MPs, coroners, charities, and disabled people themselves, Kendall and Chancellor Rachel Reeves are refusing to change course.

On Thursday, Reeves told BBC Radio 4 that “we’re not going to be changing that,” insisting the reforms are necessary to ensure the future of the welfare state.

Critics say that justification sounds eerily familiar—and dangerously disconnected from reality.

“This is not balance. This is brutality,” said one source close to the committee. “We’ve already lived through this before. People died. They know the risks. They are choosing to do it anyway.”

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