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The government claimed its new benefit cuts would target fraud. But the legislation makes no mention of it. Meanwhile, evidence from past reforms shows these measures will cost lives — and ministers have been warned.
The Labour government has published its draft Universal Credit and Personal Independence Payment Bill — and it is every bit as brutal, dishonest, and dangerous as critics warned.
Despite having been presented to the public as a necessary reform to crack down on disability benefit fraud and get more people into work, the Bill makes no mention of fraud whatsoever.
Not one line.
This means the government’s repeated public justification — that disabled people are cheating the system and must be reined in — was a lie.
Instead, the Bill enacts some of the most sweeping and lethal welfare cuts in modern history.
If passed by Parliament, it will slash support to disabled people, ignoring the deaths caused by past reforms, and shutting the public out of the legislative process entirely.
As I warned in my open letter to ministers earlier this year:
“What you are planning is not simply a matter of difficult decisions or tough fiscal choices. It is a policy course that history has shown leads directly to suffering and premature death. Any government that proceeds down this path, now, is doing so with eyes wide open.”
A lie at the heart of the Bill
Public statements by ministers including Rachel Reeves and Liz Kendall repeatedly claimed that the reforms were needed to reduce fraud in the disability benefit system.
But the government’s own figures show that fraud in PIP stands at just 0.4 per cent — and was previously 0.0 per cent.
Of the £9.7 billion lost to fraud and error across all benefits in 2023–24, just £190 million came from disability benefits — only 2.35 per cent.
And the Bill itself contains no reference to fraud at all.
This can only be interpreted as what it is: references to fraud were a deliberate fabrication used to justify a policy that would never survive honest scrutiny.
A law written to kill — intentionally
Between 2011 and 2019, more than 100,000 disabled people died within six months of being declared ‘fit for work’.
At least 590 suicides were directly linked to benefit changes.
These are not “allegations” or “projections” — they are documented facts, from the DWP’s own leaked records, coroners’ reports, and peer-reviewed academic studies.
As an open letter from UK social scientists stated:
“Previous similar cuts to welfare… were ineffective in getting people back into work and instead drove people into deeper poverty, damaged mental health, and were associated with high numbers of preventable premature deaths.”
Yet the Bill contains no reference to historical mortality, no mention of risk, and no provision for impact assessments.
It even revives the very mechanism — stricter PIP eligibility criteria — that caused 220,000 people to lose support under Conservative governments.
This time, claimants must score at least four points in a single daily living activity to qualify, rather than accumulating points across multiple impairments.
The government knows this will disqualify people with complex but moderate disabilities — and it has chosen to do it anyway.
Locking out the public
As if this weren’t enough, the Bill was introduced to Parliament on June 18 — even though the government’s own “Pathways to Work” consultation on disability benefit reform does not close until June 30.
Worse still, the consultation itself does not even cover the financial elements of the Bill.
The sections that will cut thousands of pounds per year from disabled households were excluded — and are now being fast-tracked into legislation.
As the Disability Charities Consortium (DCC) warned in their own open letter:
“These proposed changes… are being rushed through Parliament without meaningful engagement with disabled people… There has been no analysis of the impact of these cuts on the demand to the NHS, social care, levels of homelessness, or the disability employment gap.”
This is not policymaking by consensus. This is law written in contempt of the public, passed while the people it will hurt most are still trying to be heard.
The reality: brutal cuts – no protection
The Bill will:
-
Slash the Limited Capability for Work-Related Activity element of Universal Credit for most new claimants from ~£97/week to £217.26/month — a 50+ per cent cut.
-
Freeze all disability-related benefit uplifts from 2026 to 2030 — meaning real-terms reductions each year in relation to inflation.
-
Enforce the new PIP scoring rule, disqualifying people who previously qualified based on cumulative impairments.
-
Offer only 13 weeks of transitional support for some existing PIP claimants — before cutting them off entirely.
There is no compensation, no new hardship support, no cross-government strategy to reduce poverty or increase access to work. As the DCC put it:
“We are deeply concerned that the current proposals will increase levels of poverty amongst disabled households… We believe there is still time for the Government to reconsider.”
There may be time.
But there is no sign this government intends to listen.
New Labour — old austerity
In a chilling reprise of 2010s-era welfare cuts, the legislation reads like a throwback to Esther McVey’s DWP.
McVey herself was seen on BBC panels defending the new cuts — despite having been at the centre of the original crisis that led to deaths, suicides, and a UN finding of “grave and systematic violations” of disabled people’s rights.
As I wrote:
“Her reappearance as these new cuts are announced is not coincidental. It is emblematic of a political class that refuses to learn from its past.”
Labour may have been elected under a pretence of ‘Change’ — but on welfare, it is reviving the same failed ideas, now repackaged under the banner of “fiscal responsibility.”
This Law WILL Kill — Again
This Bill is not about fraud.
It is not about fairness.
It is not even about helping people into work.
It is about balancing the books on the backs of the vulnerable — and doing so with full knowledge of the human cost.
If it becomes law, the deaths that follow will not be “unintended consequences.”
They will be the foreseeable, documented result of policies enacted despite repeated warnings.
As campaigners, academics, charities, and disabled people have all told prime minister Keir Starmer, Reeves and Kendall:
“You cannot say you did not know.”
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Labour’s disability law is based on a lie – and drafted to kill
Share this post:
The government claimed its new benefit cuts would target fraud. But the legislation makes no mention of it. Meanwhile, evidence from past reforms shows these measures will cost lives — and ministers have been warned.
The Labour government has published its draft Universal Credit and Personal Independence Payment Bill — and it is every bit as brutal, dishonest, and dangerous as critics warned.
Despite having been presented to the public as a necessary reform to crack down on disability benefit fraud and get more people into work, the Bill makes no mention of fraud whatsoever.
Not one line.
This means the government’s repeated public justification — that disabled people are cheating the system and must be reined in — was a lie.
Instead, the Bill enacts some of the most sweeping and lethal welfare cuts in modern history.
If passed by Parliament, it will slash support to disabled people, ignoring the deaths caused by past reforms, and shutting the public out of the legislative process entirely.
As I warned in my open letter to ministers earlier this year:
A lie at the heart of the Bill
Public statements by ministers including Rachel Reeves and Liz Kendall repeatedly claimed that the reforms were needed to reduce fraud in the disability benefit system.
But the government’s own figures show that fraud in PIP stands at just 0.4 per cent — and was previously 0.0 per cent.
Of the £9.7 billion lost to fraud and error across all benefits in 2023–24, just £190 million came from disability benefits — only 2.35 per cent.
And the Bill itself contains no reference to fraud at all.
This can only be interpreted as what it is: references to fraud were a deliberate fabrication used to justify a policy that would never survive honest scrutiny.
A law written to kill — intentionally
Between 2011 and 2019, more than 100,000 disabled people died within six months of being declared ‘fit for work’.
At least 590 suicides were directly linked to benefit changes.
These are not “allegations” or “projections” — they are documented facts, from the DWP’s own leaked records, coroners’ reports, and peer-reviewed academic studies.
As an open letter from UK social scientists stated:
Yet the Bill contains no reference to historical mortality, no mention of risk, and no provision for impact assessments.
It even revives the very mechanism — stricter PIP eligibility criteria — that caused 220,000 people to lose support under Conservative governments.
This time, claimants must score at least four points in a single daily living activity to qualify, rather than accumulating points across multiple impairments.
The government knows this will disqualify people with complex but moderate disabilities — and it has chosen to do it anyway.
Locking out the public
As if this weren’t enough, the Bill was introduced to Parliament on June 18 — even though the government’s own “Pathways to Work” consultation on disability benefit reform does not close until June 30.
Worse still, the consultation itself does not even cover the financial elements of the Bill.
The sections that will cut thousands of pounds per year from disabled households were excluded — and are now being fast-tracked into legislation.
As the Disability Charities Consortium (DCC) warned in their own open letter:
This is not policymaking by consensus. This is law written in contempt of the public, passed while the people it will hurt most are still trying to be heard.
The reality: brutal cuts – no protection
The Bill will:
Slash the Limited Capability for Work-Related Activity element of Universal Credit for most new claimants from ~£97/week to £217.26/month — a 50+ per cent cut.
Freeze all disability-related benefit uplifts from 2026 to 2030 — meaning real-terms reductions each year in relation to inflation.
Enforce the new PIP scoring rule, disqualifying people who previously qualified based on cumulative impairments.
Offer only 13 weeks of transitional support for some existing PIP claimants — before cutting them off entirely.
There is no compensation, no new hardship support, no cross-government strategy to reduce poverty or increase access to work. As the DCC put it:
There may be time.
But there is no sign this government intends to listen.
New Labour — old austerity
In a chilling reprise of 2010s-era welfare cuts, the legislation reads like a throwback to Esther McVey’s DWP.
McVey herself was seen on BBC panels defending the new cuts — despite having been at the centre of the original crisis that led to deaths, suicides, and a UN finding of “grave and systematic violations” of disabled people’s rights.
As I wrote:
Labour may have been elected under a pretence of ‘Change’ — but on welfare, it is reviving the same failed ideas, now repackaged under the banner of “fiscal responsibility.”
This Law WILL Kill — Again
This Bill is not about fraud.
It is not about fairness.
It is not even about helping people into work.
It is about balancing the books on the backs of the vulnerable — and doing so with full knowledge of the human cost.
If it becomes law, the deaths that follow will not be “unintended consequences.”
They will be the foreseeable, documented result of policies enacted despite repeated warnings.
As campaigners, academics, charities, and disabled people have all told prime minister Keir Starmer, Reeves and Kendall:
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