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AWARD-winning film-maker Ken Loach has warned Philip Hammond not to cut money from the “most vulnerable and poorest people” as the Tory Chancellor prepares to slash disability benefit by almost a third in next week’s Budget.
The director of the critically acclaimed I, Daniel Blake urged the government to rethink plans to cut disability allowance by 30 per cent in the Autumn Statement.
Mr Loach told BBC Radio Four: “It’s meagre anyway. People with disabilities need the barest minimum that they are given at the moment just to survive, just to get by, just to keep going and try and get back into work.”
Plans to delay access to the universal credit health element until age 22 have triggered fierce opposition from disabled people’s groups, who warn it would deepen poverty and entrench discrimination against young disabled people under the guise of ‘encouraging work.’ DYLAN MURPHY reports
A new report from the Citizens Advice destroys the government narrative about disabled people ‘choosing’ not to work, showing the £3,000 annual cuts will create a two-tiered system based on claim dates rather than needs, writes DYLAN MURPHY
Labour must not allow unelected members of the upper house to erode a single provision of the Employment Rights Bill, argues ANDY MCDONALD MP