A written transcript and a video of yesterday’s Westminster Hall debate on PIP cuts are now available.
The debate was opened by Diane Abbot, who began by telling MPs:
“I am proud to have secured this debate today, and to be able to stand up for the disabled in the light of the catastrophic effects that the proposed cut to personal independence payments will have on them. This is the week after the council elections and the Runcorn and Helsby by-election proved disastrous for at least two major parties. The issue on everyone’s lips, and the cause of much of the disaffection, was welfare cuts, and specifically cuts to personal independence payments.”
Richard Burgon reminded MPs that:
“Harold Wilson once said: ‘The Labour party is a moral crusade, or it is nothing.’
“We need to be clear, as millions of people outside this place are clear, that to try to balance the books on the backs of the poor and disabled is fundamentally immoral and un-Labour. The Prime Minister and the Government need not to plough ahead apace with this immoral, appalling plan, but instead to drop it now. Let us be clear: someone who needs assistance to cut up their own food and wash and dress themselves would currently get a personal independence payment, but they could lose it thanks to the Government’s proposals. That is completely appalling.”
Rachel Maskell spoke movingly, saying:
“After 14 years of battling, here we are, with ‘Pathways to Work’, taking away money, agency, dignity, independence and the essence of life itself. I fear, like many do, that people will take their lives, once again crushed by a system that fails to believe and points the finger rather than offering the hand, turning hope to despair. Poverty, dependency and harm—if not physical, most definitely psychological—await.
“Colleagues, we are better than this. Let us vow to stop such pernicious cuts and rewrite the story with the voices, experiences and hope of disabled people. Even if tech, task, time and place can be accommodated, work is not always the answer. We do not even have the diagnosis, understanding of the evidence, or answers from Charlie Mayfield’s report. I will vote against these cuts because I am Labour and because disabled people matter.”
Disability minister Stephen Timms defended the cuts and, once again, repeated the very dubious claim that people above state pension age “will not be affected at all”.
You can read the transcript of the debate here.
You can watch a video of the debate here
