Work and Pensions Secretary Liz Kendall has announced changes to the welfare system – including merging some benefits and a plan to scrap the work capability assessment used to claim universal credit.
false,Tuesday 18 March 2025 13:46, UK
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Sky News political correspondent Liz Bates is in the central lobby of the Houses of Parliament.
She was listening in to this afternoon’s statement on welfare reforms.
Liz says we’ve been expecting changes for “months” – but there’s been “a bit of softening around the edges” after a Labour backlash.
Whether personal independence payments would be frozen was a key test for many in the Labour Party – and was “causing a lot of tension” and even delayed the announcement.
Rather than freezing PIP, Kendall announced it will be harder to get – but Liz says the trouble is not over.
Votes on legislation will be required to enforce the changes announced today, and Liz notes: “We’ll be listening over the next few days and weeks to disability campaigners, to Labour MPs, to see how this lands.
“Could there be a big rebellion in the House of Commons?
“It really depends on how Labour MPs feel about the details of the announcement they’ve seen today.”
Labour’s former shadow chancellor John McDonnell says the changes announced will cause “immense suffering”.
He highlights the changes to personal independence payments, which will make fewer people eligible.
“There are decisions made in this House that stay with you for the rest of your life – this is one of them,” he says.
He asks the work and pensions secretary what independent monitoring will take place to ensure people are protected, and “what threshold of suffering will it take to take an alternative route?”.
Reforms will be ‘properly scrutinised’
Liz Kendall says she takes the changes she’s announced “very seriously”, and will ensure all proposals are “properly scrutinised”.
But she insists the government’s reforms will “improve the lives and life chances of sick and disabled people” – including those who can work, and those who can never work.
Clive Lewis is a Labour MP who is known for being independent of the government and often challenging ministers.
He asks Liz Kendall if she understands the “difficulty” the changes will cause many people.
“This £5bn cut is going to impact them more than I think her department is giving credit for,” he says.
He asks Kendall if her department is able to look his constituents “in the eye” and tell them this is going to work for them.
Kendall says: “I know that I can look my constituents in the eye and say to them, I know that getting more people into better paid jobs is the key to their future success.”
Dr Marie Tidball, who is a disabled Labour MP, says she welcomes the “proactive” approach being taken to help get disabled people back into work.
Kendall says the government will work with disabled people and the groups that represent them to develop pathways to work and employment support.
Action groups have been quick to come out in response to the proposed changes to the welfare and benefits system.
The Disability Benefits Consortium described the changes as “immoral and devastating”, adding they would “push more disabled people into poverty and worsen people’s health”.
Making it harder for people to claim personal independence payments will especially harm those who need to pay for things like wheelchairs and visits from carers, it said.
The PCS union accused the government of making an “immoral choice”, having slashed benefits at a time of “rising poverty, long NHS waiting lists, and when the cost of living crisis continues”.
The union has members working in Jobcentres across the country, and said too many people are being left in “destitution”.
Britain’s rates of benefits are already “among the lowest in the Western world”, the union said.
Debbie Abrahams is a Labour MP and chair of the Work And Pensions Select Committee.
She calls on Liz Kendall to “get our reforms to bed in first before we look to make the cuts”.
Abrahams says there is a lot of evidence of the “adverse effects” from the cuts carried out by the Conservatives – “including the deaths of vulnerable people”.
Kendall says the equality impact analysis and the poverty analysis on the changes will be published alongside the spring statement.
The first Labour MP to comment in the House, Abrahams seems cautiously supportive of the changes.
Shadow work and pensions secretary Helen Whatley is responding to Liz Kendall’s statement on welfare reforms.
She explains that economic inactivity was at a record low before the pandemic.
Whatley then goes on to claim her party had identified the problems that needed fixing and had a plan to tackle them.
She says Labour opposed these and accuses them of entering government with “empty notebooks”.
It’s worth noting that the Conservative government had the majority in parliament to make any changes they wanted when in power.
Whatley then criticises Kendall for taking Tory policies – saying the only original policy is the increase to the basic rate of universal credit.
She also mocks Kendall for continuing to criticise her party’s record after 14 years in power.
Kendall responds by saying Whatley’s speech seemed to be “railing against her own party’s failings and lamenting action that her party itself failed to take”.
Work and Pensions Secretary Liz Kendall is now going through her main announcements.
The government will:
Kendall says the measures will save around £5bn.
She describes the current WCA system as “complex” and “time-consuming” for people trying to apply.
She also says the government “will legislate to rebalance the payments in universal credit from April next year, holding the value of the health top up fixed in cash terms for existing claimants and reducing it for new claimants”.
The minister adds there will be “an additional premium for people with severe lifelong conditions”.
People with the most “severe disabilities and health conditions” will not need to be reassessed on their suitability to work, she insists.
What about PIP?
Kendall says while PIP is here to stay, people will need to score at least four points in one activity to qualify.
That will require a change in law.
Kendall says the PIP reforms will save £5bn a year by the end of the decade.
Helping people back to work
On support for those looking for work, the minister announces £1bn a year for employment support.
The minister says the government will consult on whether the health top-up to universal credit should be delayed for those aged under 22, with the savings spent on work support and training opportunities.
Work and Pensions Secretary Liz Kendall is on her feet announcing reforms to the welfare and benefits system.
She starts by laying out the case for the plans – saying the system inherited from the Conservatives is “holding our country back”.
Kendall says Labour is “ambitious for our people and our country, and we believe that unleashing the talents of the British people is the key to our future success”.
The minister lays the blame for more and more people using social security at the feet of the Conservatives – including the governments of the 1980s and 1990s.
She also blames the way the system was treated in austerity – as well as during and after the pandemic.
Kendall says she “will never compromise” on the people with a genuine need – but that many of the people who are not in work, want to work.
Liz Kendall is announcing the government’s welfare reforms.
They are expected to include big money cuts to benefits.
Watch live in the stream below or at the top of this page, and follow updates throughout.
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