Labour DWP ministers leave chronically ill and disabled people in the dark over controversial PIP reform proposals

Labour Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) ministers are keeping hush hush over the new government’s plans for the Tories controversial Personal Independence Payment (PIP) reforms.

DWP PIP consultation: Labour’s continued silence

On Monday 22 July, the Tories’ notorious DWP PIP consultation closed. As the Canary previously reported:

Under the previous Conservative Party government, the DWP launched plans to overhaul the benefits system. When it came to PIP, the then Tory-led department put forward proposals to cut the number of claimants and implement new supposed cost-saving alternatives.

Significantly, this included Sunak’s notorious plans to replace the disability benefit with a voucher scheme.

To date, the new Labour government has been tight-lipped on its agenda for PIP. Naturally, people in the chronically ill and disabled community have been concerned by this.

This is not least because Labour’s DWP boss Liz Kendall has already begun scapegoating sick and disabled people. In particular, she has made getting them into employment a key plank of the government’s ‘Back to Work’ agenda. And there are alarming signs that this will mean coercing people who are too sick into work.

Given all this, chronically ill and disabled campaigners and organisations have repeatedly called for the government to scrap the DWP PIP consultation – and the proposals along with it. However, Starmer and co have kept quiet – leaving people to wonder if the new plan might very well be the old plan – that is, the Tory’s dangerous new reforms.

In fact, up until now, the only public information about Labour’s plans for the DWP PIP consultation had come from so-called “Labour insiders” speaking to the Mirror.

Now, Labour DWP ministers have finally piped up – but they’re leaving people with no clearer answers.

Tight-lipped on PIP in parliament

First up, DWP Lords spokesperson baroness Maeve Sherlock dodged scrutiny over PIP in the House of Lords.

Liberal Democrat life peer baroness Celia Thomas tabled a question on 18 July. She quizzed the government over its plans for changing DWP PIP assessment process. Sherlock responded on the 25 July.

Of course, Sherlock gave a non-committal response, stating the same spiel as the insider leak:

We will be engaging with the responses people have made to the previous government’s consultation on Personal Independence Payment, which closed on Monday 22 July.

We want to thank the many people who invested their time in responding.

We will be considering our own approach to social security in due course.

Then, it was much the same semantic gymnastics in the House of Commons. Almost word for word, disability and social security minister Stephen Timms told Labour MP Cat Smith on the 29 July that:

The consultation on the Modernising Support Green Paper closed on Monday 22 July. Over 16,000 responses have been received and we will review these responses.

The proposals in this Green Paper were developed by the previous government. We will be considering our own approach to social security in due course.”

Leftwing Labour MP Clive Lewis has also put forward a more specific question on the government’s DWP PIP plans. His written question queried:

whether her Department will replace cash payments for the Personal Independence Payment.

Needless to say, the answer kicked the can down the road again. But most significantly, the response – again from Timms – was a word for word repeat of his answer to the House. In short, it offered no new information on Labour’s PIP plans as a whole, and entirely avoided responding directly to Lewis’s question on replacing cash payments.

DWP PIP: no answers anytime soon

Now however, it’s unlikely we’ll be getting greater clarity on this any time soon. This is because, as Benefits and Work have noted, from the 30 July (today), it’s the start of parliamentary summer recess.

The outlet also pointed out that party conference season will run from 13 September to 6 October. This means that there’ll be less than two weeks between the end of parliamentary recess and the start of the autumn conference season, when the House of Commons once again goes into recess.

Given the understandable distress the Tory proposals have been causing, Labour leaving chronically ill and disabled people in the dark on the DWP PIP plans is not good enough.

Feature image via the Canary