(Alliance News) - UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer has been directly challenged by Labour veteran Diane Abbott over the government's cuts to welfare, with the Mother of the House telling him there was "nothing moral" about the plan.
Around a million people in England and Wales will lose their disability benefits as part of the welfare overhaul, experts believe.
At Prime Minister's Questions, Starmer insisted that the current system was "morally and economically indefensible".
But Abbott, the longest-serving female MP, said: "There is nothing moral about cutting benefits for what may be up to a million people.
"This is not about morality, this is about the Treasury's wish to balance the country's books on the back of the most vulnerable and poor people in this society."
Starmer told her it was a "moral issue" that one in eight young people were not in employment, education or training.
He said: "I'm not going to turn away from that, I am genuinely shocked that a million people, young people, are in that position, and I'm not prepared to shrug my shoulders and walk past it."
SDLP MP Colum Eastwood highlighted the case of a woman who needed her children to help cut up her food, wash and supervise her going to the toilet.
"Under the Tory welfare system we were able to get that lady on Pip [personal independence payments], under the prime minister's new proposed system, she will get zero, nothing," he said.
"After 14 years of the Tory government – and many of us wanted to see the back of them – can the prime minister answer one question: what was the point if Labour are going to do this?"
Starmer replied: "I've lived with the impact of disability in our family through my mother and brother all my life, I do understand the human impact of this but the current system is morally and economically indefensible and we're right to reform it."
The measures are expected to save more than GBP5 billion-a-year in 2029/30, with changes to eligibility for Pip expected to account for the largest proportion of savings.
The Resolution Foundation think tank said the tightening of Pip eligibility would mean between 800,000 and 1.2 million people losing support of between GBP4,200 and GBP6,300 per year by the end of the decade.
Chief Executive Ruth Curtice said some people will endure a "really significant income loss".
She told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "Given what they've told us about how much they're planning, the Resolution Foundation estimate it's around a million people who are losing their entitlement to Pip completely."
She added: "You can think of GBP5 billion as small or large, depending on your perspective – getting those from a million individuals means that for those individuals, it's really significant income loss."
The Office for Budget Responsibility had – prior to the reforms announcement – forecast that spending on health and disability benefits for working-age adults will increase from GBP48.5 billion in 2023/24 to GBP75.7 billion in 2029/30.
An impact assessment of the government's plans is due to be published alongside the chancellor's spring statement next week.
Other changes include scrapping the work capability assessment for universal credit, UC, in 2028 – replacing it with a single assessment under Pip – and consulting on delaying access to the health element of UC until a person is 22.
The proposals also include an above-inflation rise in the standard allowance for universal credit but a cut to the rate paid out for the health element for new claimants.
A GBP1 billion increase in employment support measures to help disabled and long-term sick people back into work has also been pledged.
Writing in The Times newspaper, Starmer pointed to the 2.8 million working age people out of work due to long-term sickness, claiming this was a "damning indictment of the Conservative record" on welfare.
The prime minister wrote: "The result is devastating for the public finances. By 2030 we are projected to spend GBP70 billion a year on working-age incapacity and disability benefits alone.
"But more importantly it has wreaked a terrible human cost. Young people shut out of the labour market at a formative age. People with complex long-term conditions, written off by a single assessment.
"People who want to return to work, yet can't access the support they need."
Meanwhile, a disability think tank claimed the savings made by 2030 could be far less than predicted – at GBP100 million rather than the GBP5 billion forecast by the government.
The Disability Policy Centre said its own analysis projects any potential savings "will be offset by a range of unintended costs elsewhere across the system, in particular resulting from the tightening of personal independence payments criteria".
The organisation said these include "increased pressure on the NHS as some disabled people seek alternative support, a fall in spending from disabled households with less disposable income and additional legal costs from appeals against the cuts".
By David Hughes, Will Durrant and Aine Fox
Press Association: News
source: PA
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