Chancellor raises worrying questions over PIP cuts as she suggests reassessments will open door to work support

The chancellor has raised worrying questions about the government’s planned cuts to personal independence payment (PIP), after she repeatedly linked the disability benefit to employment when giving evidence to a committee of MPs.

Rachel Reeves was being questioned by MPs on the Commons Treasury committee yesterday (Wednesday) about the impact of her cuts to PIP of more than £4.5 billion a year by 2029-30.

But she repeatedly linked PIP – which is available to disabled people both in work and out of work – with the government’s Pathways to Work green paper and its “guaranteed offer of tailored, one-to-one help alongside access to appropriate employment, health and skills support” to disabled people on out-of-work benefits.

The evidence given by Reeves suggested that the government believes that cutting PIP will force hundreds of thousands of disabled people into work.

Under Labour’s planned cuts to PIP, all claimants will have to be awarded at least four points on at least one “activity” to qualify for the daily living component, although this will not apply to the mobility component.

Reeves (pictured) was being questioned by Liberal Democrat MP Bobby Dean (watch from 4.12pm), who appeared to accept the links between PIP and employment.

PIP is supposed to contribute towards some of the extra disability-related costs that disabled people face, whether they are in work or not, and many disabled campaigners fear that the PIP cuts will make it harder for disabled people to stay in the jobs they already have.

The government’s reforms mean disabled people will in the future only be able to continue to claim the health element of universal credit if they also qualify for PIP.

If they are found ineligible for PIP, but are still eligible for the basic allowance of universal credit, it is likely that they will face a range of work-related conditions and potential sanctions as well as access to employment support.

Dean engaged in a discussion with Reeves about the impact of the cuts to PIP and how many of the estimated 800,000 disabled people set to lose out by 2029-30 were likely to “get back into work as a result of that measure”.

After evading the question several times, Reeves eventually suggested that when current PIP recipients are reassessed, the government wanted them to “be seen face-to-face by a trained assessor to make sure they get the support they need, whether that is support in terms of benefits or support in terms of getting into work”.

This appeared to be suggesting that ministers wanted PIP reassessments to lead to more disabled people receiving employment support.

Dean then asked her if she was “quite confident then that everybody that ends up dropping out of their [PIP] eligibility criteria has the potential to work and that you’ll be able to get them into work”.

Rather than telling Dean that PIP is unconnected with employment, Reeves told the committee that there were “hundreds of thousands of people with a disability who want to work, and there are many people with disabilities who already do work and we want to give them more support, whether that’s adjustments in the workplace, whether it is training, for more of them to fulfil their potential”.

The committee failed to cross-examine Reeves in detail about a key controversial change to universal credit, which is closely connected to the government’s disability employment policies.

Under the government’s plans, the universal credit health element for new claimants will be cut from £97 per week currently to £50 per week in 2026-27, while it will be frozen for existing claimants until 2029-30.

But there no attempt to question Reeves in detail about the impact of this measure on disability poverty.

Meanwhile, a new disabled-led student movement is calling on universities to speak out against the government’s planned cuts to PIP and other disability support.

The Universities Against Disability Cuts (UADC) movement has been started by Jenna, a disabled student at Swansea University, who believes she would not be preparing to graduate this summer if it had not been for the support she has received from PIP.

In days, her new campaign has spread to three other universities, including King’s College London and the University of York.

In a letter being sent by disabled students to their universities, UADC calls for each institution to “publicly oppose” the government’s changes through a public statement.

The York letter has attracted more than 70 student signatures, and the Swansea letter more than 50.

Jenna said PIP was “a lifeline” and the government’s planned £4.5 billion cuts would be “devastating” and “terrifying” and probably “drive existing undergraduate and postgraduate students out of education”, while reducing the number of future disabled students who are able to attend university.

She said the cuts would also “drive disabled people out of work and education and into poverty, homelessness, and tragically is also likely to result in a loss of life”.

Jenna has been in contact with Disabled People Against Cuts and the new Crips Against Cuts, which are both mobilising against the cuts.

In another development, the disabled-led WOWpetition network has released a statement attacking the prime minister, Sir Keir Starmer, and chancellor Rachel Reeves “for targeting their austerity measures at disabled people, their families and their children, in the same way that David Cameron and George Osborne did”.

They said in the statement: “We plead with Labour to think again before more disabled people die as a result of austerity targeted at them.”

They called on the Labour government to carry out a cumulative impact assessment of how all the cuts announced by the government will affect disabled people, “so that they can fully understand the effect their changes will have on disabled people, their families, their children and their carers”.

This mirrors the repeated calls the campaign made to Conservative-led governments in the post-2010 austerity years.

WOWpetition collected more than 100,000 signatures in 2012 and 2013 and its demands were first debated in parliament on 27 February 2014 and again in 2018.

WOWpetition said in this week’s statement: “The cumulative effect of a myriad of tax and benefit changes layered onto disabled people has never been calculated, with the result that disabled people are in fear of their futures.

“The WOWpetition believes all governments owe a duty of care to disadvantaged people.

“It is disappointed that it has to remind a Labour government of this fact.”

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