Only 17 peers back disabled people on cuts, as leading Tory says living on benefits is ‘not a life of dignity’

Just 17 peers were willing to support disabled people this week, following disablist comments by both Tories and a Labour member as the Lords rubber-stamped a bill to remove billions of pounds a year from disabled people seeking out-of-work benefits.

During Tuesday’s debate on the bill, both Conservatives and a Labour peer whipped up hostility towards disabled people and repeated discredited claims by Tory leader Kemi Badenoch that sought to blame them for the country’s economic problems.

The bill will reduce the health element of universal credit for most new claimants from £97 a week to £50 a week, from April 2026, cutting spending by more than £2 billion-a-year by 2029-30.

By 2029-30, this will mean 750,000 universal credit claimants who cannot work for disability-related reasons having their health element addition frozen at £50 a week.

The most disablist comments came from hereditary peer Viscount Younger, the Conservative shadow work and pensions minister – and a former DWP minister – who told fellow peers on Tuesday: “A life on benefits is not a life of dignity.”

He then added: “It is aspiration, it is work and opportunity that confer meaning; dependency corrodes.”

And he told fellow peers that “welfare dependency, unfortunately, is a British disease”.

Viscount Younger repeated a claim made in research by the Centre for Social Justice (CSJ) and repeated by Badenoch, telling fellow peers that a disabled person receiving the health element of universal credit (UC), and the average level of housing benefit and personal independence payment (PIP), “earns” £2,500 more a year than a worker on the national living wage.

As Badenoch had done earlier this month, he failed to point out that PIP was designed by a Conservative government to contribute to a disabled person’s extra disability-related costs.

Viscount Younger also repeated Badenoch’s statement that “one in four people self-identifies as disabled”, wrongly suggesting – as she did in her speech – that all those people were claiming disability benefits.

He even appeared to try to blame the social model of disability and the Disability Discrimination Act of 1995 for the increase in claimants of disability benefits.

But there was one positive development during the debate, as Labour work and pensions minister Baroness Sherlock stated that to qualify for the “severe conditions” group – which will protect UC health claimants from reassessments and allow new claimants to claim extra health element payments – a disabled person would not need an NHS diagnosis, but only a diagnosis that is “recorded somewhere in the NHS system”.

The move was welcomed by disabled activist Dr Jay Watts, who said it was a clear concession by the government.

Despite the bill being passed by peers, disabled activists stressed that it was the campaigning of disabled people and their organisations that had forced the Labour government to repeatedly water down the legislation, including removing cuts of billions of pounds a year to personal independence payment (PIP) and to existing claimants of the universal credit health element.

Disabled People Against Cuts said disabled people had “fought tirelessly”, while another grassroots organisation of activists, Taking the PIP, highlighted “just how much the incredible work of activists made the government strip it back”.

Watts said disabled people had ensured “powerful truths [were] spoken in the Lords which may help later in legal and public fights”; and journalist and activist Rachel Charlton-Dailey said she was “so proud of how hard we all campaigned to make this bill much more watered down than it could’ve been”.

Although the Lords had no power to prevent the universal credit bill becoming law, a “motion of regret” – which criticised the impact of the bill on disabled people – proposed by Green peer Baroness [Natalie] Bennett allowed peers to express their opposition to the legislation.

But when she forced a vote on her amendment shortly after 9pm, just 17 peers – including disabled peers Baroness [Sal] Brinton, Baroness [Tanni] Grey-Thompson and Baroness [Celia] Thomas, Liberal Democrats, Greens and Plaid Cymru, but no Labour or Tory peers – voted for her motion, with 120 opposing it, most of them Labour peers but also including three Conservatives.

Another who voted against the motion of regret was the Bishop of Newcastle, the Rt Revd Dr Helen-Ann Hartley, who had spoken in the debate of the “fact” that “social security spending is rising”, when in fact it is stable as a proportion of GDP*.

The bill was then passed without a vote, having been approved earlier this month by MPs, and will now become law.

During Tuesday’s debate, it became increasingly clear that none of the peers taking part had seen evidence published by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) on 17 July – after the bill was passed by MPs – which showed the “full impact” of the rising cost of living on disabled people (see separate story).

And not a single peer mentioned a report – also released on 17 July, after more than 18 months of DWP delays – which showed how DWP’s actions continue to be linked to the deaths of disabled claimants of universal credit, the same group that peers agreed should have their support slashed from next April if they are new claimants (see separate story).

There may also be embarrassment within the Labour party that some of Badenoch’s disablist hostility was repeated by Labour peer Lord [Roger] Liddle, a former special adviser to Tony Blair.

He echoed the misleading comments of Badenoch and CSJ by claiming that “people out of work on disability benefits are significantly better off than people who work, who flog their guts out on the minimum wage and receive universal credit”.

And he told fellow peers it was much more important to address child poverty than to maintain spending on disability benefits.

He said child poverty was “a much bigger cause” because it “can lift families out of desperate poverty and enable them to have many more opportunities in life.

“This is the great cause to which a Labour government should address themselves, and unless we deal with the problem of working-age disability benefits, we will never be able to afford it.”

Baroness Stedman-Scott, a former DWP minister and now Conservative shadow women and equalities minister, continued with the hostility, suggesting to fellow peers that it was only through work that disabled people could have a “sense of purpose”.

A small number of peers – including some Labour peers – did try to counter the hostility.

The disabled peer Baroness Brinton, for the Liberal Democrats, said the bill had “destroyed whatever tiny amount of hope the disabled community had that this new government understood disabled people and their lives”.

And she spoke of the implication by work and pensions secretary Liz Kendall that disabled people were “workshy”, and her repeated implication that PIP was an in-work benefit.

She also pointed to comments by Badenoch that it was “possible to claim PIP by self-certification, as well as suggesting that every disabled person in the country claims disability benefit”, and stating it was “possible for someone with a food intolerance to get a Motability vehicle”, when “not one of those statements is true”.

She said: “It is alarming that senior people in the two main parties in the Commons appear to be demonising disabled people.”

Baroness Grey-Thompson, a crossbench peer, said she was “extremely concerned” at how the media had portrayed disabled people “as benefit scroungers and a drain on society” and how MPs had wrongly called PIP an out-of-work benefit.

She mentioned the website set up by an anonymous right-wing activist which allowed people to check whether “an annoying neighbour” with a new car had obtained it through the Motability scheme, which she said “feels like it crosses a line to incitement” and had led to “despicable” messages on the new website.

The Liberal Democrat work and pensions spokesperson in the Lords, Lord Palmer, warned that prevention of future deaths reports written by coroners showed the possible tragic impact of the bill’s removal of “safety net” protections.

Labour’s Lord [Prem] Sikka described the bill as “cruel” and said it targeted disabled people, and that there had been no government assessment of its impact “on the NHS, public services, local economies, families, people, and human dignity”.

He said: “None of us could live on the new level of reduced support for future claimants. The bill removes hope and support for those who desperately need it.”

He also pointed out that government figures show social security spending in the UK is “considerably below the OECD** average”.

Another Labour peer, Lord [John] Hendy, also criticised the cuts within the bill.

He said: “That cut does not reflect diminished need but is irrespective of need. It is solely to save the government money. That I find unacceptable.”

He said the cuts appeared to conflict with the UK’s obligations under the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

Another Labour peer, Baroness Lister, said the “shrunken” bill would still cause “real damage”.

She said: “I hope the omnishambles of the past few weeks will stand as a lesson for how not to carry out social security reform.

“Charities, think tanks and academics all make the case for investment in social security as a force for good rather than treating it as a dead weight.

“It is time we put the security back into social security.”

Baroness Bennett, for the Greens, said the problem was not one of providing too many people with disability benefits but of “delays and problems with NHS treatment and social care… food systems and housing of terrible quality, and problems with air quality, nature and the environment, low pay, and insecure work.

“All these things make people ill.

“We very much need to tackle those issues, but if we deny people enough money to live on and to be able to afford healthy food, that will not make them healthier.”

She also mentioned a letter sent to the UK government by the UN committee on the rights of persons with disabilities, which warned that the bill appeared to be a fresh attack on disabled people’s rights.

Baroness Sherlock, for the government, said the bill created the “right and fair balance” and would “allow us to build a more proactive, pro-work system for the future, giving people the right incentives and support to build a better life”.

She claimed it would “protect existing claimants who are already familiar with a certain level of support and who might find it particularly difficult to readjust if that were to change”.

Baroness Sherlock said the bill “rebalances universal credit to remove work disincentives, and it gives existing claimants the security and certainty they need, while providing new protections against unnecessary benefit reassessments for the most vulnerable”.

And she said the bill would “take us another significant step closer to fulfilling our vision of giving everybody who can work a pathway to work”.

*Gross domestic product, the size of the country’s economy in a particular year

**Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, whose 38 member countries include the US, Canada, Japan, Australia, France, Mexico and Korea

Picture: Lord Liddle (left) and Viscount Younger speaking in the debate

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