Union activists applaud challenge to minister over billions of pounds of cuts to disability benefits

Disabled union activists repeatedly challenged a Labour minister at a conference this week on the government’s plans to cut billions of pounds a year from spending on disability benefits. 

There was prolonged applause when one disabled delegate, Mark Anthony Bastiani, from the Communication Workers Union, asked Sir Stephen Timms why a Labour government was targeting “the most vulnerable in society” with its cuts rather than “super-rich tax evaders”.

Delegates were questioning the minister for social security and disability – who appeared online rather than in-person – at the annual TUC Disabled Workers’ Conference in Bournemouth (pictured).

A delegate from the retail trade union USDAW challenged Sir Stephen to justify the huge cuts to disabled people’s income when one charity had estimated that a maximum of three per cent of disabled people having their benefits cut would benefit from £1 billion in new funding for employment support.

Another delegate, Pat Roche, from the University and College Union, asked what steps Sir Stephen would take to stop the demonisation of disabled people as “lazy, workshy and benefit scroungers”.

And a UNISON delegate asked him if the government had estimated how many disabled people would lose their jobs through plans to tighten eligibility for the daily living part of personal independence payment (PIP), which will mean only those who receive at least four points in at least one of the activities claimants are assessed on will continue to receive it.

In his responses, Sir Stephen mostly repeated previous government lines on the cuts, including the insistence that only 10 per cent of those receiving PIP in November 2026, when DWP starts to review claims under the new rules, will have lost it by 2029-30.

He said the Learning and Work Institute had told DWP that the government’s plans to boost employment support could increase the number of disabled people in work by 165,000.

Sir Stephen described the government’s plans as “bold”.

He said it was a “very fair point” that many disabled people used PIP to stay in work, but he insisted again that “the numbers that are going to be affected by these changes are a good deal less than some people are suggesting”.

Sir Stephen said far fewer disabled people would lose PIP than those who currently do not receive four points in any activity because there would be “a good deal of behaviour change”.

He said this would be at least in part because the healthcare professionals carrying out PIP assessments for the companies contracted by DWP would “reflect” the importance of four points.

He said: “So, there is going to be much more focus on that, the assessors are going to reflect that.”

This suggests that disabled people should trust those working for companies such as Maximus and Capita, which have both been associated with poor quality assessments, the deaths of claimants, and – in Capita’s case – countless dishonest PIP assessments.

In the case of Maximus, its link to the death of Jodey Whiting was exposed again this week during the long-awaited second inquest into her suicide (see separate stories).

Sir Stephen also repeated the government’s position that the increase in PIP spending was “unsustainable”.

He said: “If it is unsustainable then in the end it is going to be the people claiming the benefit who lose out.

“I appreciate that it doesn’t always feels like that but that is actually what is motivating this and the reason it is so important.”

But he failed to explain the logic behind his statement, which appears to suggest that cutting benefits from disabled people receiving PIP now will benefit those people because it will prevent them having their benefits cut in the future.

He also claimed that the government wanted to “tackle head on that kind of demonisation that you were talking about”, and suggested Labour may introduce new legislation to address it, telling the conference: “It is completely wrong, and, you know, it may need some legal changes to improve the position.”

And he insisted that Labour had already taken several steps to increase taxes on the wealthy, including introducing VAT on private schools and private jets, cutting exemptions on inheritance tax, doubling the stamp duty on second homes, and increasing capital gains tax.

He added: “And as you know, we have abolished non-dom tax status.

“We’re told that a few people have left the UK in response to that. I think we will manage without them.”

But there are also questions this week over whether Sir Stephen asked the TUC (Trades Union Congress) to ensure that his speech to the conference, and the question-and-answer session, were not livestreamed.

Key parts of previous conferences, including last year’s speech by Labour’s then shadow disability minister Vicky Foxcroft, have been livestreamed by the TUC.

And until questions were asked of the TUC by Disability News Service (DNS) this week, there was a message on the conference webpage stating that its public sessions, including keynote speakers, would be streamed online.

That message was then removed from the TUC website.

One delegate told DNS that they had been informed by a TUC staff member that the ban on livestreaming was introduced at Sir Stephen’s request.

But the TUC has strongly denied that Sir Stephen requested that his session should not be streamed live.

It insists that it told DWP the conference would be a closed event with only delegates in attendance, and that the message had been placed on the conference webpage by mistake.

It says that none of its equalities conferences have been livestreamed this year, although DNS has found this speech that appears to have been filmed openly with TUC approval and streamed at the TUC Black Workers’ Conference in April.

A TUC spokesperson said in a statement: “Disabled Workers’ Conference is a closed event for TUC delegates.

“No TUC equalities conferences have been live streamed this year.

“The chair of the disabled workers’ committee reminded delegates that there should be no filming of the conference, which is to ensure delegates feel able to speak freely about personal testimonies.”

DWP had refused to say by noon today (Thursday) if the minister had requested that his speech and question-and-answer session should not be livestreamed, but a spokesperson said: “This was a private event which the minister attended virtually due to diary pressures.”

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