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THE government would end austerity now if it cared about disabled people, Labour said yesterday.
Shadow work and pensions secretary Debbie Abrahams pointed out that the Budget had failed to do anything for disabled people, even though a recent Equality and Human Rights Commission report showed that the average disabled adult is over £2,000 a year worse off than in 2010.
Ms Abrahams said: “Even the UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities condemned this government for causing a ‘human catastrophe’ in their failure to uphold the rights of disabled people.”
Labour will find increases in the state pension age are unacceptable, just as cuts to the Winter Fuel Allowance, personal independence payments and universal credit are — it needs to change direction immediately, writes PCS general secretary FRAN HEATHCOTE
The government’s retreat on PIP still leaves 150,000 new universal credit claimants facing halved benefits from April 2026, creating a discriminatory two-tier welfare system that campaigners must continue fighting, writes DR DYLAN MURPHY