A Labour minister sent out to defend the government’s welfare cuts has admitted he couldn’t live on the £70 a week universal credit young people could be forced to survive on.
In an interview with BBC Newsnight, Torsten Bell, former chief executive of the left-leaning Resolution Foundation think tank, said the £5bn welfare cuts involved “tough choices”.
Under the current system, those who are out of work are able to claim universal credit to help with living costs, which is currently worth around £70 per week for single people under 25.
Personal independence payments (PIP) are paid on top of universal credit to supplement the income of those with disabilities, but around a million people will lose access to it as the eligibility criteria is tightened.
Asked about plans to reduce welfare provisions, the pensions minister admitted he “absolutely” couldn’t live on £70 each week.
Pressed on why he is expecting young people to live on that amount, he said: “Well no, I have a mortgage to pay”, adding that the “benefits system exists to provide housing benefit support for young people as well”.
Mr Bell argued the current system is a “disaster” for young people” and accused left wing critics of “defending a Tory benefit system”.
Despite the reforms, Mr Bell vowed: “People with significant disabilities will be protected. They will. Not only will they be protected within the Universal Credit System, which is the one you’re mentioning, but they’ll also be able to apply for PIP.
“So people with significant disabilities, if they are young, if they’re currently receiving UC health, they will continue to receive it. And if they have significant disabilities, they will still be allowed to apply for PIP.”
Mr Bell said the previous system “has failed and is driving up the number of people who are out of work and receiving benefits”.
And, asked about critics of the government, including former Labour shadow chancellor John McDonnell, Mr Bell said: “I’ve said this gently to John and to others that they are defending a Tory benefit system that writes off millions as unable to work.”
As the war of words escalated, Mr McDonnell hit back, saying: “Torsten Bell has just accused me of defending a Tory welfare system. That is a lie. I have consistently called for reform of the system but not a reform based upon billions of pounds of cuts that will harm and put the lives of disabled people at risk.”
Responding to the cuts, the now independent MP Mr McDonnell warned in the Commons: “The reality is trying to find up to £5bn worth of cuts by manipulating, by changing, the PIP (Personal Independence Payment) rules, the criteria will result in immense suffering and – we’ve seen it in the past – loss of life.”
Other critics included left-wing Labour MP Clive Lewis, who asked whether ministers understood the “pain and difficulty that this will cause millions of people”, while Labour chair of the work and pensions committee Debbie Abrahams accused the government of “balancing the books on the backs of sick and disabled people”.
Work and pensions secretary Liz Kendall said the bulk of the changes, aimed at saving £5bn by 2030, would fall on PIP by raising the threshold that people can qualify for it. She pointed out there were 1,000 new PIP claimants every week – a level she said was “unsustainable”.
Announcing the cuts, Ms Kendall told parliament the current social security system is “failing the very people it is supposed to help and holding our country back”.
Despite the changes marking the largest welfare cuts since 2015, ministers have been unable to rule out further slashing the bill further down the line.
Resolution Foundation chief executive Ruth Curtice told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme a million people will completely lose their right to PIP through the cuts. She said: “The Government haven’t given us a number for how many will be affected, and because they’ve made quite a detailed change to the system, we can’t tell exactly who will be affected.
“I think it would have been good if the government had told us yesterday, but given what they’ve told us about how much they’re planning, the Resolution Foundation estimate it’s around a million people who are losing their entitlement to PIP completely.”
Despite the barrage of criticism, Sir Keir Starmer said on Tuesday: “This government will always protect the most severely disabled people to live with dignity.
“But we’re not prepared to stand back and do nothing while millions of people – especially young people – who have potential to work and live independent lives, instead become trapped out of work and abandoned by the system. It would be morally bankrupt to let their life chances waste away.”